Outgoing Clearwire CFO to get a $1 million cash severance |
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Outgoing Clearwire CFO to get a $1 million cash severance
Clearwire has been radically altering its management structure over the past 10 months. But the shakeup is coming with a cost.
Take, for example, the departure of David Sach who left the Kirkland company late last month to "pursue new opportunities." According to filing today, the former Clearwire CFO is slated to get a $1 million cash severance, along with health coverage for one year and retention of stock options.
That's more than double the $475,000 base salary of incoming CFO Erik Prusch and slightly more than the $900,000 base salary that new CEO William Morrow pulled down. It also follows the March 15 severance payout of $1 million to Sach's predecessor, John Butler, who resigned last fall.
Several other Clearwire executives have left in recent months, notably Chief Strategy Officer Scott Richardson and Chief Operating Officer Perry Satterlee.
According to a proxy statement filed earlier this year (page 37), those executives also were entitled to pretty healthy payouts when they left. It is unclear whether they collected or not, but the proxy statement said that Satterlee was to receive a cash severance of $920,000 while Richardson was to get $562,500.
Ben Wolff also left his position as CEO of the broadband wireless carrier in March, though he continues to serve as co-chairman along with Craig McCaw.
Of course, Clearwire is already losing hundreds of millions of dollars as it builds out its network -- $524 million for the first six months of this year. And just to put the severance agreements in perspective, it finished last quarter with $755 million in cash and cash equivalents on the books.
Still, who knew that revamping a management team could cost so much money?
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John Cook is co-founder and executive editor of TechFlash. He has been covering the technology beat for nearly a decade, writing about startups, entrepreneurs and venture capital, most recently serving as a reporter/blogger at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
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