Former Oath CEO Tim Armstrong is exiting Verizon with a payout worth more than $60 million

Tim Armstrong will leave Verizon Communications with an awards and benefits package worth more than $60 million. The Wall Street Journal calculated the total amount based on a securities filing from last Monday by combining Armstrong’s compensation in 2018, severance and a special incentive package he was given by Verizon when it acquired AOL in 2015. Armstrong was head of Oath (now called Verizon Media), which took a write down of $4.5 billion last year and laid off seven percent of its workforce as it struggled to compete with other digital media companies.

Oath, the company’s digital media unit, was created in 2017 by merging AOL and Yahoo, two companies acquired by Verizon Communications. (Disclosure: TechCrunch was part of AOL, then Oath and now Verizon Media).

Verizon Communications announced Oath’s $4.5 billion after-tax write down at the end of last year. It said the sum, which basically cancelled out the benefits of the merger, was due to increased competition in digital advertising and other market pressures last year had resulted in lower-than-expected 2018 results and that it expected those issues to continue.

The business unit also announced in late January that it would lay off seven percent of its workforce, or about 800 employees.

After months of rumors, Verizon Communications announced that Armstrong would be succeeded as CEO of Oath by Guru Gowrappan last September. Armstrong formally left the company at the end of 2018.

TechCrunch has contacted Verizon for comment.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2ue3XXx