AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong reportedly stands to collect $180 million from the company’s acquisition by Verizon (VZ), according to The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper adds he won’t be eligible for a good amount of that money until a year after the deal closes.
The Journal reports that Armstrong has 6.7% ownership of AOL and is the largest individual shareholder. The article continues:
The 1.68 million shares Mr. Armstrong owns have a market value of $84 million. Since he spent $25 million of his own money in the course of building up that stake—he also received stock awards—Mr. Armstrong will net about $59 million from selling his shares.
Armstrong will stay with Verizon, and he has signed a long-term contract, according to the newspaper. He received a “large number” of AOL stock “options with varying exercise prices,” but can’t exercise those options until a year after the deal closes, the paper said.
Exercising the options would yield a profit of about $120 million, the Journal said, and would bring his “total haul from the transaction to $179 million, excluding taxes.”
In 2014, Armstrong’s compensation totaled $6.9 million. Verizon acquired AOL for $4.4 billion on Tuesday.
As Coins2Day reported, the deal signals Verizon’s foray into the ad-tech business.
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