In numbers
Million-dollar Mayer
$1.12 million
Bonus paid to Yahoo! Inc chief executive Marissa Mayer last year, after she met targets set by its board. She joined Yahoo in July, becoming the first pregnant chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.
40%
Surge in Yahoo’s shares since the hiring of the 37-year-old Mayer, who recorded the company’s first annual sales increase in four years in 2012 (and had the baby too).
$50 million
Remuneration set to come Mayer’s way over the coming years, including $14 million she would have received in stock-based awards had she stayed in her last job at Google.
Image of the week:
The magic bonus number is...
In British department store chain John Lewis, every worker is known as a “partner”. It is normally the type of thing Planet Business would be cynical about but, in the case of the John Lewis Partnership, it actually means something.
Here they are pictured yesterday celebrating the staged announcement of a 17 per cent bonus after the chain outperformed rivals with a 16 per cent rise in annual profit. That’s a 17 per cent bonus . . . nine weeks’ pay. Amazing.
And, of course, it’s excellent PR. A business that cares about its workers and shows it in monetary form is the kind of place people might want to shop. PHOTOGRAPH: REUTERS/ANDREW WINNING
Getting to know: Len Blavatnik
Len Blavatnik, the billionaire owner of Warner Music Group, has just poured $60 million (€46 million) into Daisy, the fledgling, yet-to-launch music streaming service run by Beats Electronics, which is the company most famous for the Beats by Dr Dre headphones so loved by Olympic athletes.
Daisy, according to the Russian-born US businessman, “has the vision, the brand, the management team and now the investor group to change the expectations and experiences of a music subscription service” effectively.
Blavatnik’s Daisy investment, which comes just two years after he purchased Warner for $3.3 billion, coincides with Warner’s commitment to support Google’s proposed streaming service, which all points to Blavatnik’s determination that his major label won’t get trapped behind the music industry curve this time around.
It’s streaming a-go-go.
The Lexicon: Austerity cage
The “austerity cage” is a term for the economic catch-22 of debt-slashing policies. It was used this week by Pier Luigi Bersani, the head of Italy’s Democratic Party (PD) and a former communist.
Bersani has come out as pro-stimulus, hinting that a financial injection into the Italian economy is necessary for it to break “out of the austerity cage”.
This marks a shift on his earlier position, which had been more closely aligned to that of outgoing prime minister Mario Monti. Bersani’s anti-austerity talk is aimed at wooing political rival Beppe Grillo, a former comic, into forming a minority coalition.
The List: Microsoft versus the EU
Microsoft has been fined €561 million by the European Commission for failing to implement a ruling obliging it to offer users a choice of internet browsers. This isn’t the EU’s first clash with the company.
1 Starting the fight: In 1998, Sun Microsystems complained Microsoft wouldn’t give it the technical documents it needed to build interfaces between their products. The EU was on the case.
2 Windows era: In 2004, Brussels imposed a then record fine of €497 million on Microsoft for abusing its (then) dominant position in the software market.
3 More fines: In 2006, the EU fined Microsoft a further €280.5 million for not complying with its orders to share documents.
4 Browser blues: In 2008, the EU turned its attention to Microsoft’s behaviour on browsers after a complaint from Opera Software.
5 Penalty time: Last year, the EU’s general court rejected a Microsoft appeal against a 2008 fine for non- compliance with the 2004 order, but lowered it from €899 million to €860 million.
