As Time Inc. insiders brace for a new round of pre-spinoff layoffs that are expected to begin next week, recently unveiled numbers show the top brass at the publisher are not sharing in the pain.
Norman Pearlstine, the executive vice president and chief content officer, will earn a base salary of $900,000, but because he did not serve a full year in 2013, he got a fraction of that last year, or $128,077, according to a regulatory filing earlier this month.
But wait, there’s more.
The company paid him $1.4 million as part of a “Pearlstine Make Whole Bonus” for lost compensation from his previous employer, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Bloomberg LP.
Laura Lang, the former chief executive who many blamed for leading the company nowhere after Time Warner boss Jeff Bewkes picked her to succeed the ousted Jack Griffin in 2011, was paid $2.5 million in lieu of a transaction bonus because she was forced out officially last November.
Among her going-away “gifts” were $30,000 in career counseling and outplacement services, courtesy copies of certain DVDs produced and distributed by Time Warner, and “the attendance of Mrs. Lang’s guests at certain business functions.”
Lang’s total parachute last year, including a bonus, was a staggering $11,459,009 on a base salary of only $1 million.
The prior year, her base pay, stock awards and other compensation came to $7,611,309, according to the filing, bringing her two-year haul to just under $20 million.
The 2013 compensation includes the entire amount of her annual bonus plus the extra $2.5 million because she was not sticking around until the spinoff was completed.
In contrast, current Chief Executive Joe Ripp pulled in a total pay package of $8,981,032 — less than Lang but not a bad payday. He also had a base salary of $1 million.
When the spinoff was first announced in March 2013, Time Warner decided it would not award any stock options to hundreds of managers inside Time Inc., with the thinking that they would be gone before the full year had elapsed.
In reality, the company did not get spun off as fast as expected: the big jettison is expected to take place next month, nearly 15 months later.
While the Time Inc. insiders were shut out, the parent company did quietly decide in late 2013 to slip some Time Warner stock bonuses to Ripp and the new Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Bairstow.
Ripp was granted 55,441 shares with an estimated grant date value of $3.75 million.
Bairstow was granted 7,392 restricted stock units, valued at $500,000 plus 28,249 stock options valued at $500,000, the regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed.
The estimated stock price for both calculations was $67.64 a share. Bairstow pulled in $2,496,018 last year from Time Inc. and will receive a base of $800,000.
The awards were necessary to induce them to leave their old companies and lead Time Inc., the company said.
Evelyn Webster, the executive vice president in charge of the Lifestyle Group, which includes most of the monthly titles — like Real Simple and In Style — pulled in $1.7 million last year, which was more than Todd Larsen, the executive vice president in charge of the weekly titles such as Time, Sports Illustrated and People. Larsen had total compensation of $1,512,001 last year.
There will be few tears shed for Martha Nelson, the generally well-liked editor-in-chief who resigned last October, only 10 months after she became the first woman to hold the position in the company’s history.
Her compensation in 2013 for 10 months of work was $6,802,495, the filing shows.
The position was abolished in October and replaced by Pearlstine’s chief content officer, although all the top magazine editors do not report up to the CCO as they did to the E-I-C.
Quitting Time Inc. to stay at Time Warner proved pretty lucrative for Howard Averill, the former executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Maurice Edelson, the former EVP and general counsel — and considered by some to be the key architects behind the 2012 ouster of former chief Griffin (now running Tribune Co.).
Averill snagged total compensation of $3.1 million last year while Edelson was paid $3.2 million.
Time Inc. is scheduled to begin trading as a separate public company on June 6.
All shareholders of Time Warner as of May 23 will get shares in the new Time Inc.
The road show to convince Wall Street investors to jump aboard the company ship will take place May 27-29.
The ax is expected to fall on selected employees starting May 19 in advance of the spinoff.
The company said that there were 7,900 people employed at the end of 2013, including 5,100 in the US and 2,800 in international operations.