Karmazin Contract Extended, With Raise and Massive Options (SIRI)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) has extended its contract with CEO Mel Karmazin.  Today, June 30, 2009, the company entered into an amendment to the amended employment agreement, dated November 18, 2004, with Karmazin.

The Amendment extends the term of the Employment Agreement through and until December 31, 2012.  The new agreement increases Karmazin’s base salary from $1,250,000 per year to $1,500,000 per year beginning on January 1, 2010.  It also provides for the grant of an option to purchase 120,000,000 shares of SIRIUS common stock at an exercise price of $0.430 per share.  Other than as provided in the amendment, the employment agreement will continue in accordance with its terms.

The option will vest in equal installments on each of December 31, 2010, December 31, 2011, June 30, 2012 and December 31, 2012; and the vesting of these options will accelerate upon the termination of Mr. Karmazin’s employment by us without cause, by him for good reason, upon his death or disability and in the event of a change of control.

ADDITIONS TERMS: The options will generally expire on December 31, 2014; provided that if the parties subsequently agree to extend the term of the Employment Agreement through December 31, 2013 or later, then the term of the Option will automatically extend until the later of December 31, 2015 and the date that is one year following the date that such new employment agreement expires.

Late last year, we noted that it seemed very possible that Mel Karmazin might not survive through all of 2009 if things continued.  The odds of Karmazin now being forced out probably went down to “very slim.”   But the company has its new financing, and is now under a much newer structure after recent Liberty deals.

Full details in the SEC FILING are here.  How you view this development will depend on whether you have owned shares for a couple months or if you have been a long-time holder.

Jon C. Ogg
July 1, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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