Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn could be the biggest business transaction of the year, but even if it isn’t, the numbers involved are astronomical. We already know that LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman will secure $2.9 billion from stock selling when Microsoft’s $26 billion purchase closes. It turns out CEO Jeff Weiner will not be doing too badly from the transaction either.
LinkedIn and Microsoft are currently going through the legal processes necessary to close a massive deal like this. A filing made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission a week ago shows that Weiner’s stock selloff will amount to a massive $138 million. That’s thanks to Microsoft’s over the odds $196 per share paid for the enterprise-oriented social network.
However, things get a lot better for the CEO as he will be heading for Microsoft after the company offered to hire him and let him continue to front LinkedIn. According to VentureBeat, the amount he will get in his hiring package could be as high as $88 million.
The outlet is basing this figure off Microsoft’s letter offering Weiner a position, how much the company paid per share for LinkedIn, performance bonuses, annual salary, and so on.
Weiner will be picking up $815,000 per year as a starting salary when he heads up LinkedIn for Microsoft, while he will get a $25 million performance stock award between the closing of the deal and June 2020. Other performance incentives could boost this number up to $62.5 million, the details suggest.
While a lot of the figures are performance based, Weiner is covered if he is let go by LinkedIn/Microsoft after the deal is closed, with him netting $21.6 million in that scenario. It would be nice to get sacked under such terms we imagine!
VentureBeat delves into the calculations further in its report, but the takeaway is that Weiner could score around $88 million just for being hired to remain as LinkedIn CEO.
