When Altria—formerly known as Philip Morris Companies and parent company of Marlboro—invested $12.8 billion for a 35 percent stake in Juul, it put a huge $38 billion valuation on the biggest e-cigarette maker in the game.
That’s a ton of money. However, as a part of the deal, a special $2 billion dividend was also tacked on, with the bonus intended to be paid out to Juul’s employees. And with Juul having about 1,500 employees worldwide, that means each worker could be in line to receive roughly $1.3 million each on average, according to CNBC.
That said, in real life, calculating how much of that bonus each worker actually gets is never that simple. CNBC reports that, based on info from a “person briefed on the terms,” final payouts will be determined based on a person’s length of employment, how much stock they own, and other factors
While it probably won’t solve the problem entirely, Altria’s $2 billion bonus could help smooth over objections from Juul employees about being bought out (even as a minority investor) by Big Tobacco, with some workers saying that Juul is making a “deal with the devil.”
But with the traditional cigarette market in decline, Altria is clearly trying to stay relevant by throwing big lumps of money around while it still can.
[CNBC]
