The Whole Truth About Mark Thompson's Compensation in 2015What Mark Thompson was paid to wake up and go to work in the morning in 2015 was actually $691,000. Not an unreasonable amount for a company this size operating in multiple markets.
Total cash bonuses during 2015 for MT was approximately $2mm. Not unusual given that the company completed two major acquisitions in 2015, although given how the assets perfromed that was likely too much, but hindsight is 20/20. So total cash compensation was actually under $3M and not $9M as the short and distort gang would have you believe..
The rest is the value of vested and unvested stock options and restricted share units. The vesteing of the latter is directly tied to pre-determined perfromance metrics. If the metrics are not met, no payout is ever made. I would be more than happy for MT to get $6mm of value if those metrics are met since we,as shareholders, will be handsomely rewarded along with the management team.