In the United States, a big payday for execs is nothing new. But in Finland, home to the former cell phone giant Nokia, it's big. Almost as big as the $25 million golden parachute former Nokia boss Stephen Elop was schedule to receive as part of the buyout of his company by Microsoft. Well, it looks like two divorces are putting a kink into that plan—the first between Elop and his future ex-wife Nancy, the second between Nokia and its home country, where Nokia had been a source of national pride before being bought by Microsoft.
The fact that it has been so high-profile has rankled the already-angry Fins, who aren't used to their executives getting high eight-figure payouts. It has gotten to the point where Elop and Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa have discussed canceling or reducing the payout, except there's one thing standing in the way of that: Nancy.
According to court documents, at the time of the divorce filing, Elop and Ballmer were negotiating the $7.2 billion sale of Nokia's phone and services business to Microsoft, where he was formerly the executive in charge of the productivity software group. That means the payout was being negotiated while the two were still married, which means that she gets half of $25 million, whether or not he takes a lesser amount.
Elop filed a petition for divorce on Aug. 1 in Seattle's King County Superior Court, where the case is scheduled to continue into 2014. We'll keep an eye out for the settlement because it will be interesting to see how Elop, his career and bank account come out on the other side.
For more: Nokia boss Elop's Microsoft payout complicated by divorce (Seattle Times)