Apr

Yahoo Chief Exec Gets Boatloads of Comp

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Boatloads, chief, Comp, Exec, Gets, Yahoo

We have a rather silly running joke here at Marketing Pilgrim which goes back to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s statement last year that the one thing that Microsoft will need to supply to Yahoo was “boatloads of money”. Well, after an SEC filing it looks like that much of that money was needed to give Ms. Bartz her $42.7 M comp package for her first year on the job.

DailyMe reports

Yahoo Inc. CEO Carol Bartz received a $47.2 million compensation package during her first year on the job as the Internet company tried to motivate her to engineer a turnaround

The 2009 package spelled out in a Thursday regulatory filing consisted mostly of stock incentives whose ultimate value will hinge on how much Yahoo’s market value rises under Bartz’s leadership.

So now we have redefined just what boatloads of money may mean. As always, it’s hard for folks to see compensation packages for one person (even if 1/2 of it is in stock options) that comes on the heels of a year when Yahoo had its worst revenue performance since the first dot com bubble burst and much of the cost savings at Yahoo came at the expense of jobs.

As for the total comp for Bartz it breaks down like this

More than half of Bartz’s 2009 compensation package consisted of 1.67 million stock options valued at $27.2 million. Those options carry an exercise price of $11.73, but won’t vest for Bartz to use unless Yahoo shares close at an average price of $17.60 for 20 consecutive trading days. The shares have yet to hit that threshold.

Yahoo’s stock closed Thursday at $16.97, up 22 cents.

Bartz’s 2009 compensation package also included a $10 million award that Yahoo said was designed to cover incentives and benefits that she surrendered when she left her last job at software maker Autodesk Inc. The award consisted of $2.5 million in cash and $7.5 million in stock.

Yahoo awarded her other stock options and restricted stock valued at $7.5 million.

All that came on top of a $969,872 salary and $1.5 million bonus.

So now whenever we refer to Ms. Bartz and her “boatloads of money” we will need to ask whether she is talking about Yahoo or her own personal take.