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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/06/tech_exec_cash_in/

Yahoo! and Google's top brass cash in

Stock warning - snouts in the trough

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco (andrew.orlowski@theregister.co.uk)

Posted in Financial News, 6th April 2005 07:28 GMT

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Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel took home $230m from the result of stock sales last year, one of the largest ever hauls for a company executive, a SEC filing reveals. Semel holds another 300 million in Yahoo equity. While mere mortals are usually restricted by selling chunks of options over a four-year period, most of Semel's equity is readily convertible.

Unselfishly, Semel didn't ask for a pay rise. The former Warner Brothers chairman takes home $600,000 a year in salary.

Meanwhile Google's executive triumvirate of Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt have pocketed over half a billion dollars [1] from stock sales since the company went public.

What's the catch?

Last month one of Google's most enthusiastic boosters on Wall Street downgraded [2] estimates for both Google and Yahoo!, warning that the text ad boom was slowing to a near halt. RBC's Jordan Rohan predicts a double digit fall in the share price which he describes as a "significant negative inflection point".

Best to cash in while the stock's hot. If you can. ®

Related stories

Google and Yahoo! accused of click fraud collusion [3]
Botnets strangle Google Adwords campaigns [4]
Google sues website over click fraud [5]
Ad confidence spurs Yahoo! [6]
Hacking Google for fun and profit [7]