Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav could have his compensation “considerably” decreased after shepherding the corporate’s break up, however he can even reap a considerable reward for his efforts.
In an SEC submitting Monday, the corporate stated it had revised the pay packages of Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, who’s poised to grow to be CEO of the TV networks entity that may outcome from the break up. Zaslav is about to run the studios and streamers unit, with HBO and Warner Bros., after the uncoupling. The break up, introduced final week, is slated to grow to be official in mid-2026.
Zaslav’s new settlement will “considerably cut back his goal annual compensation, together with decreasing his annual money compensation alternative and reorienting the full pay combine towards long-term incentives,” the submitting stated. The change will “foster a stronger alignment with stockholders and incentivize sustained, long-term worth creation.”
The compensation committee of the WBD board initiated the brand new employment agreements. In adjusting Zaslav’s pay, the committee thought of “a variety of inputs,” the submitting famous, “together with stockholder suggestions obtained over the previous few years, peer group practices and benchmarks, strategic priorities of WBD and the worth creation alternatives” inherent within the break up.
Whereas the writing has been on the wall for a number of months about WBD splitting into two corporations, the swiftness of the announcement of the deliberate transaction has shocked Wall Avenue and trade observers. Zaslav, who has reaped tons of of thousands and thousands in compensation over the course of his media profession, usually rating close to the highest of all U.S. company execs, lately acquired a rebuke from WBD shareholders. On the firm’s annual assembly, they voted towards his pay bundle, although below firm guidelines the vote was non-binding.
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