Yahoo's chief Mayer to receive $186m golden parachute from Verizon sale

Yahoo's chief executive Marissa Mayer
Yahoo's chief executive Marissa Mayer joined in 2012

Yahoo's chief executive Marissa Mayer is set to make $186m once the sale of the group's core business to US telecoms giant Verizon completes, securities filings have shown.

The $186m comprises of Ms Mayer's Yahoo stock, stock options and restricted stock units, and is based on the Monday stock price of $48.15.

The amount is much higher than the $23m "golden parachute compensation" Yahoo detailed for Ms Mayer in March.

Shares in Yahoo have risen by more than 200pc since Ms Mayer joined the company from Google in 2012, pushed up by its long-held investments in Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba. 

However, Yahoo's core email, search and news business has struggled to keep up with rivals Google and Facebook, and Ms Mayer, who took on the CEO position almost five years ago, has faced criticism for her management practices, namely hiring and firing a chief operating officer who earned $58m in 15 months and overseeing an exodus of top executives.

A series of acquisitions, such as the social network Tumblr, also failed to pay off for the group, and Yahoo looked to separate the Alibaba stake from its core operations. 

Yahoo had originally been planning to spin off the Alibaba stake, but was forced to U-turn on this, and instead agreed to sell the core units to Verizon, in a deal which was announced last year.

Verizon agreed to pay Yahoo $4.8bn for the business, but the pair later revised down the price by $350m in the wake of revelations Yahoo had suffered two historic data breaches in 2013 and 2014.

Mr Mayer will step down from the board alongside its co-founder David Filo and board members Eddy Hartenstein, Richard Hill, Jane Shaw, and Maynard Webb once the deal completes.

Yahoo's sale of its core business is subject to shareholder approval, to be sought at a meeting in June.

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