CEO 'Reconsiders' Job Offer, Gets $1.8M Anyway

Thank goodness for severance pay
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jun 23, 2015 4:36 PM CDT
CEO 'Reconsiders' Job Offer, Gets $1.8M Anyway
Singer Diziano Ferro, left, and EMI CEO Elio LeoniSceti at the EMI Grammy party in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010.   (AP Photo/Dan Steinberg)

Cosmetics and fragrance maker Coty says Elio Leoni Sceti, who was scheduled to become its CEO in about a week, decided not to take the job ... but the company will still pay him $1.8 million in severance as well as buy back preferred stock he had bought. The company explains that the severance payment, which is equal to one year's salary, was part of the employment agreement Leoni Sceti signed with Coty in April. The company will also pay about $55,000 to buy back preferred stock he had purchased.

Coty, based in New York, sells fragrances, cosmetics, and skin and body care products under brand names including Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, OPI, and Sally Hansen. Coty's former CEO Michele Scannavini left the company for personal reasons in September. The company says in a news release that Leoni Sceti, 49, had "reconsidered" and will not join Coty; it did not disclose a reason for that decision. Coty said its chairman, Bart Becht, will remain interim CEO. (More executive pay stories.)

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