Yahoo!'s new CEO may get $27-mn pay

Yahoo! Inc Chief Executive Officer Scott Thompson may receive compensation of as much as $27 million, including salary, potential bonus, restricted shares and other forms of pay.

Thompson, formerly president of EBay Inc's PayPal, will get a base salary of $1 million and a possible annual bonus of as much as two times that amount, Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said in a regulatory filing.

Thompson is tasked with turning around a company that has struggled to vie with Google Inc, owner of the world's most popular search engine, and Facebook Inc, the leader in social networking. He'll oversee a strategic review that began after the board ousted former CEO Carol Bartz, and he'll need to weigh the possible sale of Yahoo's stakes in Asian companies, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

"That seems unusually high," Mark Mahaney, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., said of Thompson's compensation during an interview on "Bloomberg West." "That said, you know, you are taking him away from a very successful company. You're putting him in a risky situation."

Other compensation includes an equity grant with a target value of $11 million.