SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) of Japan announced on Friday that Marcelo Claure, its chief operations officer, is quitting the technology investor, the latest high-profile resignation.
The departure follows a fight with Masayoshi Son, the company’s founder, and CEO, over his remuneration, according to a source familiar with the situation who asked to remain anonymous because the subject is private.
Claure’s deputy, Michel Combes, a former telecoms executive from France, has been named CEO of SoftBank Group International, according to SoftBank.
Claure, who was already one of SoftBank’s highest-paid employees after earning $17 million in 2020, has been in talks to quit for several months and may soon create his own investment firm, according to previous media reports.
While Son has been open about his readiness to pay to lure international talent, he is the CEO of a publicly traded Japanese firm in a country where huge compensation packages for senior executives are frowned upon by investors.
Claure, who has spent several years inside SoftBank cleaning up messed-up investments like Sprint and WeWork, had expected to be paid billions of dollars in compensation over the years, whereas Son wanted to pay him a far lesser sum.
