Count on Martha Stewart for tips on making dough rise – and this week, she’ll attempt to raise her biggest, greenest pile of money ever.
When Martha Stewart rings the opening bell on Tuesday and her Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia goes public, her adoring fans will have the chance to buy 7.2 million shares of her TV, publishing, merchandising and Internet empire.
If they go for the $13 to $15 apiece her bankers intend, Martha’s company will raise $100 million.
While that’s more than enough to pay for the “breakfasts-to-go” she’ll be serving before the trading day begins, she’ll do far better than that herself. Her own skillfully crafted package includes a massive chunk of stock, lots of cash, and voting control over her company.
With 34 million shares of stock going to herself, the Doyenne of Domesticity’s stake will be worth nearly half a billion dollars.
On top of that, her five-year employment contract gives her a $900,000 annual salary and a minimum annual bonus of $300,000.
“That salary is about three times too high,” said compensation expert Graef Crystal.
CEOs of companies the size of Stewart’s average about $306,000 in salary, according to Crystal. (Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia pulled in $180 million in revenues last year.)
To be fair, her empire has shown the potential to make far more than that.
Revenues in 1998 jumped 36 percent from the year before.
And unlike a lot of companies going public these days, hers actually makes money. MSLO’s $23 million profit last year was up 77 percent from 1997.
And things look bright going forward. Kmart is expected to sell $1 billion worth of her housewares this year, nearly one-third more than last year.
Still, “she should not be taking a salary right now at all,” said IPO analyst Manish Shah.
“If she believes in her stock, she should get her gains from that. Look at Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.”
The vast majority of their fortunes come from their stakes in their own companies.
Gates made $623,000 in salary and bonus last year; Buffet gave himself a salary of just $100,000.
Stewart is giving herself other perks as well.
She’ll get $2 million a year in location fees; the company, according to the prospectus, uses her properties for “filming, photography, research and development of content and products and other various commercial purposes.”
“That’s like Hugh Hefner trying to palm off the Playboy mansion as a business expense,” scoffed Crystal.
“It would be far cheaper for the company to buy those properties and lease them back for her to live in.”
Her severance is generous.
If she resigns for “good reason” (including a forced relocation) or is fired, she’ll get a minimum $7.7 million lump-sum payment.
But that seems unlikely, because she’ll control 96 percent of her company’s voting stock after the IPO.
“How can they fire her?” asked Crystal.
“She has the power to fire the board. She can hold her shareholder meetings in front of her makeup mirror.”