Deals
Taking on Viacom Could Mean Even Fatter Paycheck for CBS Chief
- Leslie Moonves already 22nd-highest paid executive in U.S.
- More than 80% of companies pay retention bonuses in deals
CBS-Viacom Merger Proposed by National Amusements
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A tie-up between CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. would put together the pieces of a media empire. It might also garner one of the industry’s best-compensated chief executive officers an even bigger paycheck.
Mergers can bring windfalls for executives through special awards tied to cost savings or pay raises for running a bigger business. That kind of incentive might be needed to motivate CBS’s longtime CEO Leslie Moonves to take on more heavily leveraged Viacom, whose cable networks such as MTV and Comedy Central have been losing viewers to newer and nimbler competitors.