Saturday, September 10, 2011

How fired CEO Bartz describes Yahoo's directors

"These people f---ed me over." 

 -- Carol Bartzin an interview with Fortune magazine. Tuesday, Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock dismissed her over the phone by reading a statement. Bartz told him: "Roy, I think that's a script. Why don't you have the balls to tell me yourself?" When he finished, she said: "I thought you were classier."

Her firing came only days after Gannett announced an expanded ad sales partnership with Yahoo. The board is putting a higher priority on evaluating a potential sale of all or parts of the company over its search for a new CEO, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

4 comments:

  1. These people fucked HER over? This woman made shitpiles of money at Yahoo and Autodesk. When you don't do right by shareholders, you are supposed to get canned. ThAt is what directors are supposed to do. Sorry, Carol, you don't get it.

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  2. Bartz was named most overpaid CEO in 2010, when she made $47.5 million. Who signed off on this if it wasn't the board?

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  3. She did not made 47.5 million. That is funny accounting. You make money when cash hits your bank account. Sales reps are supposed to make this monthly commission. If they don't would you still count the commission they did not make? No because it wasnt paid. She made a lot but is is plain wrong to throw crappy numbers around.

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  4. 10:23 and 12:44. This is the sort of debate that is best settled by going to a company's own regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC filings are typically found on a company's website, under investor relations.

    Here's what Yahoo told the SEC in April in its annual proxy statement to shareholders:

    In 2010, Bartz got paid $11.9 million, which included estimates of the future value of stock options and other awards. Her base salary was $1 million.

    Because this includes options, she didn't actually receive all this money during the year; some would come later, assuming she exercises the options and the company's stock performs as forecast.

    In 2009, she got paid $47.2 million, which included about $13 million of stock awards and $29 million in options. If she doesn't exercise all those options, the value of her compensation for the year will have been lower. Her base salary was $969,872. So, once again, she didn't actually receive all the money in 2009.

    Her severance benefits take up most of three pages in the document, starting at Page 58, and are so complex that I can't even begin to estimate what they may be worth. Certainly, I imagine it's in the many multimillion dollars.

    However, in an update on its original story, Fortune says Bartz may lose that severance because she violated the company's non-disparagement clause in her contract, a result of her intemperate remarks about the board of directors.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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