Latest news with #WarnerBrosDiscovery
Irish Times
14 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Pay, perks and CEO prerogatives
It's good to be a US chief executive. Their pay packages are the envy of the corporate world, averaging $16 million (€13.9 million) for the S&P 500, more than double those for the UK's FTSE 100. And tucked inside are perks that mere mortals can only dream of. Thanks to tough US disclosure rules, we know pet supplier Chewy gave boss Sumit Singh a $29.3 million wad last year that included stock, cash, $424,474 for not one but two cars and $1,007,442 of 'security services' including 'meals and incidentals' for his guards. Meanwhile, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz's $35 million package covers $898,426 in personal jet usage and sponsorship of a professional race car that Kurtz drives in competitions. The 2025 proxy cheerily paints this as a cost saving because it avoids 'hiring a professional driver'. Then there's Warner Bros Discovery . David Zaslav has been among America's highest paid CEOs since the company was created in a 2022 merger, and last year was no exception. He took home nearly $52 million and the gravy train included a $17,446 car allowance, $991,179 in personal security, $51,176 to cover the cost of taking personal guests to the Paris Olympics and 250 hours of personal flight time on the corporate jet worth $813,990. READ MORE Neither CrowdStrike nor Chewy has held its annual 'say on pay' vote yet, but Warner Bros Discovery has recently learned there are limits to what investors will tolerate. Last week, its advisory pay vote failed, with 59 per cent of shares voting against. The fury comes after Zaslav's pay climbed 4.4 per cent, even as the company posted an $11.5 billion loss for 2024 and its bond rating was recently cut to junk. Shares are down more than 60 per cent since the merger, and it just announced plans to break itself up. Both major proxy advisers flagged the pay package as problematic, and many investors agreed. The Warner Bros Discovery board said it took the result 'seriously' but investors in the streaming half of the business, which Zaslav will head, would do well to be wary. The directors have a history of setting bonus targets that require little effort because they fall below what the company has already achieved. Zaslav's grouchy investors remain very much the exception. So far this year, 95 per cent of the S&P 500 companies that have held 'say on pay' votes have won approval from at least 70 per cent of shares voted. This is a tad more than prior years, according to Conference Board/Esgauge data. Critics of American capitalism say this shows that shareholders are too quiescent and have allowed companies to become unchecked engines of financial inequality. But the lopsided votes could also be seen as evidence that the system is doing what investors want. Detailed disclosures and vigilant proxy advisers keep shareholders informed, down to the last dollar and, except in egregious cases, they are happy to pay up. Now even that limited accountability is under threat. SEC chairman Paul Atkins is asking whether the current compensation disclosures are 'cost-effective' and avoid 'an overload of immaterial information'. It appears to be a prelude to cutting back on the detail investors get about how bonuses are calculated and the costs of private jets and other perks. Another commissioner, Hester Peirce, last week questioned the legality of 'pass through' voting, which gives fund investors the chance to participate in 'say on pay' votes, rather than being shut out of the proxy process. Congress is seeking to rein in the influence of proxy advisers and make it harder for them to galvanise shareholders against poorly run companies. One of them, Glass Lewis, plans to encourage clients to set their own policies on pay and other proxy votes rather than rely on its recommendations. Taken together, these moves would make it that much harder for investors both to keep track of who is getting paid what and to rebel when they think a company is overpaying or rewarding failure. CEOs may find the proposals attractive – few relish becoming the next Marc Benioff, whose board at Salesforce redesigned his pay package and capped his private jet payments after losing a pay vote last year. But reducing disclosure under the guise of cutting red tape carries risks. Huge payouts and perks are hard to attack if they have been fully disclosed and ratified. Things that smack of secret self-dealing would be more vulnerable. [ John McManus: Kenny Jacobs' €374,830 salary is a soft target; the problem lies elsewhere Opens in new window ] Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski is a cautionary example. Leaks about lavish parties and corporate art purchases stoked outrage and led to a prison conviction for unauthorised bonuses. Americans may be openhanded with CEO pay but they react badly if their generosity has been abused. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
Bloomberg
20 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Warner Bros. Is Close to Winning Support for Debt Overhaul
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. is close to winning support from creditors to overhaul its debt, a key part of a broader reorganization plan that would split the entertainment firm in two separate companies. Law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld had sought to organize bondholders to oppose the deal, but it told them on Wednesday that not enough of them had signed up to effectively block it, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because they aren't authorized to speak publicly.
Wall Street Journal
a day ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Warner Bros. Bondholders to Face Limits on Cooperation Pacts in Company's Split
Warner Bros. Discovery is expected to become one of the first corporate borrowers to restrict creditors from forming certain cooperation groups as the entertainment company completes a debt deal tied to its separation into two public businesses. Warner's planned corporate split would prohibit its bondholders from signing cooperation agreements, or co-ops, in which they pledge not to extend new financing unless the entire group agrees. Despite opposition from some bondholders, the blocking provision is expected to take effect following a Friday deadline for bondholder consent, according to people familiar with the deal.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NCAA settles: Big payday for college athletes
From Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) corporate shake-up to the high-stakes US Open Golf Championship and even actor Ryan Reynolds' continued big bets on global sports, the financial plays shaping the sports business are ones to watch. This week on Yahoo Finance Sports Report, host Joe Pompliano takes a look at some of this week's biggest headlines in the sports business world that you and your portfolio need to know. Plus, Sportico Legal Analyst and Senior Sports Legal Reporter Michael McCann stops by the show to break down everything you need to know about the House vs. NCAA settlement. Yahoo Finance Sports Report with Joe Pompliano, a vodcast brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, looks beyond the latest sports business headlines and analyzes all the need-to-know news—the teams, trades, and billion-dollar deals—so you and your portfolio will win BIG. Yahoo Finance Sports Report is developed and produced by Lauren Pokedoff. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Anderson Cooper's enormous CNN salary revealed as news channel circles drain... and it's FIVE times more than Kaitlan Collins
Anderson Cooper collects $18 million-a-year from CNN, according to a new report. The longtime anchor's salary is roughly five times that of Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins, sources told Puck. Jake Tapper, 56, remains locked in a 'low-eight-figure multiyear deal', the report revealed. He is set to stay on the air as a result, Puck reported without offering a timeline. CNN's parent, Warner Bros Discovery, announced plans to split into two separate companies this week, leaving the network to lead a new debt-ridden firm centered around linear TV. The cable channel's seven and eight-figure signings are therefore set to be a thing of a past, said Puck's Dylan Byers, who previously worked at CNN. '[Tapper] is surely the last CNN talent who will ever come close to netting that kind of income,' the former NBC News media reporter added. Cooper, 58, is a mainstay, but his salary seems hard to justify, Byers reported, at a time where CNN's ratings are at an all-time low. That holds especially true when comparing it with Collin's. Sure to catch on to this is Gunnar Wiedenfels, the former WBD CFO and the new boss of the CNN-led company, whom Byers insisted will see CNN as an opportunity to 'maintain relatively similar profits at a mere fraction of the cost.' 'This is the beginning of the end,' Byers wrote of the network. 'With the industry in inexorable decline, ratings at a nadir, and younger audiences turning to YouTube and TikTok, [Wiedenfels] will inevitably look at CNN.' After Monday's WBD announcement frantic employees at CNN reached out to Byers to wonder about their fate. 'What does this mean for us?' asked one. 'Thoughts?!' a 'high-ranking' CNN insider asked in regard to CEO David Zaslav's plans to divide up the conglomerate. The decision came weeks after CNBC reported that WBD was mulling a separation of its linear networks from its studio and streaming assets, much like Comcast has done with MSNBC and CNBC. The move appeared to double-down on the company's recently re-rebranded HBO Max streaming service, while leaving CNN in the lurch. Joining it in its new digs are declining channels like TBS, Food Network, HGTV, and a now NBA-less TNT. However, the asset that has seemingly suffered the most during Zaslav's three-year-stint at the top is none other than CNN, which has beet hit with several rounds of layoffs within that span. He and Wiedenfels have managed to reduce Warner Bros Discovery's $55billion debt by some $21 billion in that same timeframe. For his efforts, Zaslav took home around $52 million last year, compensation shareholders last week symbolically voted to pull back in a clear show of frustration. Zaslav and Wiedenfels' cost-cutting campaign has done little to help the conglomerate's share price, which is down 7 percent year to date. Zaslav's pay package, meanwhile, was roughly 400 times the median pay of Warner Bros Discovery staffer which stands at $130,316. Less than five months ago, CNN laid off 200 workers from its struggling TV division that an insider told Daily Mail has become 'bloated' following Warner Bros' merger with Discovery in 2021. Four years later, the same firm is set to split, showing the challenges media conglomerates are facing as they look to adjust costly legacy assets to fit in an evolving media landscape. CNN CEO Mark Thompson's long-in-the works restructuring plan for the WBD asset sets to address this by putting emphasis on CNN's digital future rather than the cable news channel. This vision, for now, remains unrealized, and in a statement issued in January after administering the network's most recent round of layoffs, Thompson warned that future was unclear. 'This is a moment where the digital story feels like an existential question,' he said, emphasizing that that CNN is set to soon roll out a streaming service - one he said will feature its most well-known stars. 'If we do not follow the audiences to the new platforms with real conviction and scale, our future prospects will not be good,' he urged. Under his two-year tenure, CNN's ratings have dropped more than 20 percent - now behind even MSNBC. The network, for years, was the top dog in terms of cable news. That distinction is now held by Fox. Byers noted that in contrast to CNN, Fox runs on a relatively inexpensive model fueled by studio programs. CNN, which has several foreign bureaus and employs costly correspondents spends large amounts on newsgathering alone.
