Yahoo! paid ex-chief $16 mn in final year

Former Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz received a $16.4 million compensation package during her last year on the job in 2011, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Bartz, a former chief executive of business software company Autodesk, was hired to engineer a turnaround at Yahoo! but was abruptly fired in September with more than a year remaining on her contract.

In addition to a base salary of about $735,000, she received a $3 million severance payment, according to the filing made Friday.

She also got $9.4 million in shares and $2.6 million in stock options, for a $12 million total, said the document.

In 2009, when she was ushered in to lead the struggling Internet pioneer, Bartz received $47.2 million, a salary that fell to $11 million the following year.

(c) 2012 AFP