Discovery Chief Got Options Valued at $190 Million on Eve of AT&T Deal
By: Wall Street Journal
May 20, 2021
Discovery Inc. DISCB -1.47% gave Chief Executive David Zaslav 14.8 million stock options on Sunday, the day before the company and AT&T Inc. T -1.14% announced a plan to merge Discovery with AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit, according to a securities filing.
The company valued the option grants at roughly $190 million on Wednesday evening, taking into account the company’s share-price volatility and potential stock appreciation over their eight-year term.
The shares underlying the options were valued at $489 million on Wednesday afternoon, as Discovery’s Class A stock traded around $33 a share. Discovery shares have fallen about 16% since the start of trading on Monday, shortly after the deal was unveiled. The options are currently trading out of the money, meaning the share price would need to rise over the next eight years for Mr. Zaslav to profit from exercising them.
…Mr. Zaslav has run Discovery since 2007 and previously ran a business unit for NBC Universal Inc. He has ranked among the current S&P 500’s 10 highest-paid CEOs in 10 of the past 11 years, according to data from MyLogIQ, which provides data from securities disclosures.
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