April 30th, 2009
Pre-Bartz Yahoo: Bonuses and more for execs
Turning around a company like Yahoo doesn’t come cheap. And keeping executive talent in place - or not - while other senior executives jump ship can also add up.
Even though co-founder, Chief Yahoo and former CEO Jerry Yang collected only a $1 salary in 2008, the company paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to executives in the forms of salaries, bonus and other perks, such as signing bonuses and car services, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week.
- Former President Sue Decker, who resigned in January after she was beat out for the CEO job by Carol Bartz, earns a cool $611,250 bonus for the year on top of the $815,000 base salary. The board, in determining the bonus, “considered Ms. Decker’s role in helping to stabilize and improve the company’s U.S. search market share and the launch of new products and platforms,” according to the SEC filing. Decker’s target bonus was 150 percent of her base salary. She received a 75 percent bonus. Decker also had car services in the amount of $23,045.
- Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen, who h as also resigned but remains CFO through a transition period, received a $250,000 bonus on top of the $487,500 base salary. The board “considered that Mr. Jorgensen had helped manage the Company’s cost-reduction and cost-management programs and made significant contributions to the Company’s 2009 operating plan.” His target bonus was 100 percent of his base salary.
- The February hiring of Aristotle Balogh as the company’s Chief Technology Officer - and now also the Executive Vice President of Products (a Bartz add-on) - included $231,045 in relocation expenses, as well as the reimbursement of $137,946 for the taxes associated with the relocation payment. Balogh also received a bonus of $375,000, which included a $100,000 sign-on bonus, on top of his $475,000 base salary.
About Balogh’s compensation, the board said it considered his “contributions in streamlining and improving productivity in the Company’s technology and product departments,” as well as helping manage costs, reorganizing management teams and developing new technologies.
And then, of course, there are all of the stock-related forms of compensation. (See image above)
Looking ahead, new CEO Carol Bartz is earning a base salary of $1 million, not counting bonuses, as well as stock options of 5 million shares.
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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