By Brandon Bailey, Technology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer stands to collect a $44 million severance package if she leaves after Verizon completes its purchase of the once-mighty internet company.
Mayer hasn't announced plans to leave, but industry observers say she's unlikely to stay after the $4.8 billion sale closes early next year.
The 41-year-old executive stands to collect $3 million in cash and almost $41 million worth of stock options and awards under a "golden parachute" agreement described in a regulatory filing Friday. In a filing last spring, Yahoo said Mayer could walk away with $55 million in compensation, but the estimates can vary with the value of Yahoo's stock and the date she leaves.
Mayer has been CEO for four years but failed to reverse a long-standing slide in Yahoo's advertising business. After an unsuccessful effort to spin off its investment in the Chinese internet giant Alibaba, Yahoo Inc. began entertaining offers for its core business earlier this year.
Yahoo weighed a variety of offers, according to the proxy statement filed Friday. One was a merger proposal from Yahoo Japan, a separate company that Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo co-owns with Japanese tech giant SoftBank. Another bid came from an unnamed group that asked Yahoo co-founder David Filo to consider financing its bid.
Filo, who sits on Yahoo's board of directors, agreed to talk with the group and recused himself from participating in further board discussions about a possible sale, according to the statement. The filing doesn't say if Filo ultimately decided to join the group. But in the end, the unnamed group submitted a $4.35 billion bid that was lower than Verizon's.
Verizon hasn't spelled out its plans but it's expected to continue operating at least some of Yahoo's popular internet sites under the familiar brand, while combining some of its ad business with the AOL operation it acquired earlier. A separate holding company, under a new name, will keep Yahoo's stake in Alibaba and some other investments.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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