Gemstar to pay Yuen $30 mil in severance
Int'l business unit head's new salary: $2 mil a year
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Pasadena-based Gemstar, which is 42.5% owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission it will pay Yuen a termination fee of $22.5 million and about $7 million to settle unpaid salary, bonuses and vacation time.
Yuen will receive a salary of $2 million a year for his new role as head of an international business unit under a five-year contract, Gemstar said.
Yuen resigned as CEO and agreed to serve as chairman of the board in a non-executive capacity under a management shakeup in October as News Corp., which has taken write-downs of nearly $2 billion this year to cover the loss in value of its Gemstar holdings, moved to take control.
Gemstar has been reeling under a string of legal setbacks concerning patents for television program guides and revealed in August it would reverse $20 million in 2001 sales and review its accounting.
Gemstar, which is under formal investigation by the SEC, is expected to file nearly three years' worth of restated results sometime in the next few days to change accounting treatments for a number of deals.
In return, Yuen agreed to assign all of his intellectual property in the interactive television and interactive programming guide fields to the company, and he also signed a six-year non-compete clause.
Gemstar shares closed up 21¢, or 5.5%, at $4 on Nasdaq on Tuesday. For the year, the shares have plunged more than 85%.
