Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer to make $186 million from Verizon deal
NEW YORK (AFP) – The Nasdaq closed above 6,000 for the first time Tuesday following a round of mostly strong corporate earnings and ahead of the White House's longawaited tax cut announcement Wednesday.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.7 percent to finish the day at 6,025.49, its second straight record close.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.1 percent to end the day at 20,996.12, while the S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent to 2,388.61.
Sentiment already was upbeat heading into Tuesday's session on increased confidence that market-friendly centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron will win the French presidential election runoff May 7.
Analysts also have been heartened by talk in recent days from the White House touting news of a long-awaited tax cut plan, with President Donald Trump expected to release details on Wednesday.
But earnings also were a factor in the rally, with three Dow members posting strong advances after reporting solid earnings. Industrial giant Caterpillar surged 7.9 percent, DuPont 3.6 percent and McDonald's 5.6 percent.
Netflix rose 5.8 percent on reports that it struck a licensing deal with a unit of China's Baidu to be able to stream content in the world's second biggest economy.
Pharmacy benefits company Express Scripts slumped 10.8 percent as it signaled it will likely lose health insurer Anthem as a client in the wake of litigation between the two companies.
Yahoo, Inc. chief executive Marissa Mayer is set to make some $186 million as a result of the Internet company's sale of its core business to Verizon Communications Inc., according to securities filings.
The hefty pay out comes despite Ms. Mayer's inability to accomplish what she was hired to do five years ago: Revitalize the fading Internet icon following its struggles with high employee and executive turnover and declines in ad revenue.
Instead, Yahoo sold its business – not including some assets like its stakes in other Internet companies – to Verizon last year for $4.5 billion. That deal is expected to close in June, after months of delays following Yahoo's disclosure of two massive security breaches.
Yahoo shareholders will vote on the deal during a special meeting on June 8, according to a securities filing published Monday. The measure is expected to pass. As part of their severance package, Ms. Mayer and other top Yahoo executives are eligible for accelerated vesting of all stock options, restricted-stock units, and other equitybased awards outstanding when the deal closes, according to the filing.
For Ms. Mayer, that includes stock options valued at more than $84 million and restricted-stock units worth about $25 million at the current share price of $48.15. She also holds about 1.6 million Yahoo shares, worth nearly $77 million. Together, those amounts are worth $186 million at the current share price, according to the information in the filing. The figure doesn't include salary, bonus or options she has already exercised.
The total payout figure is far larger than the golden parachute of $23 million Yahoo said last month that Ms. Mayer would receive as part of her planned departure from what's left of the company after the sale to Verizon. Yahoo also said then that Ms. Mayer held nearly 2.9 million stock options valued at $56.8 million as of early March.
Supporters and critics alike say Ms. Mayer took on a steep challenge with Yahoo, but her managerial mistakes, including not cutting costs quickly enough, complicated the already tricky turnaround.
Verizon initially agreed last July to buy Yahoo's business for $4.83 billion. Then Yahoo disclosed two large security breaches, one in 2014 that hit more than 500 million accounts and another in 2013 that affected more than 1 billion accounts.
The security incidents forced Yahoo back to the negotiating table, and the two companies said in February they had agreed to knock off $350 million off the price.
In March, Yahoo's board of directors said Ms. Mayer wouldn't receive her 2016 cash bonus or 2017 equity awards after a board investigation found that she and other senior executives failed to "properly comprehend or investigate" the 2014 breach.
Last month, US officials indicted four Russians, including two Russian spies, in the 2014 hack. (WSJ)