B
Bob_Hudson
Guest
naughtytalker said:
And not Howard Stern either: he's banked lots and lots of money but not $500 million from Sirius. The $100 million a year is to pay him, his staff, studio cost and things like taxes. As part of his compensation package got what was at one time $225 million in Sirius stock and he sold a lot of that early on when Sirius stock had not dropped too far from the $6+ price it had on the day Stern started - but that sale was most likely to pay the $93.7 million he owed in taxes for the stock he was given. According to this article http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/05/news/newsmakers/stern/index.htm the $225 million+ in stock was part of his $500 million contract and because Sirius met some growth goals during the hoopla leading up to Stern's move to satellite, it really was a $600 million contract based on stock values at the time. Howard in Jan. 2007 got another stock grant that was worth about $83 million at the time. Now the question is: how much stock does he still have? It is known that he sold 17 million shares back when the stock was worth maybe $5 or more a share and in January 2007 he still had 39 million shares shares: back then they would have been worth $144,690,000: today they are worth $10,530,000. Now remember he started out with $255 million in stock, got another grant of stock that was worth $83 million at the time it was issued, sold perhaps $100 million to pay taxes and now has "only" just over $10 million in stock, unless he sold some more before it crashed so hard. One source has said the $83 million stock grant pushed Stern's five year deal to $700 million, but if he has held on to most of his stock, then it may be the total package is less than $500 million: not chump change, but after expenses and taxes Howard is not going to keep most of it and no doubt when the contract is over it will not be renewed: if indeed Sirius survives that long. Howard should still be quite rich the rest of his life without ever having to work again, but this an ego-driven man and the money he does have probably does not compensate for his loss of stature in the entertainment world since going to Sirius. He should consider himself lucky that the SEC did not go after him for "pump and dump" after he rang the opening bell at NASDAQ, declared that Sirius stock was undervalued by half, and then soon after showed his lack of confidence in Sirius's future by getting permission to sell all 34 million shares he owned at the time (he did not sell all, but did seek permission to do so).
I'm not a big fan of radio shows that get their kicks from having naked women on an aural medium, but Howard is a talented guy and 99.99 percent of the so-called shock jocks who think they emulate him haven't a clue. But, much of Howard's act was the conflict with "the man" and once he eliminated that, most of the outside world stopped being the least bit interested in Howard and now it's just him and his small group of diehard listeners on Sirius, with no rules to break.
