Chris Murphy
NEW! A down market provides ideal circumstances for negotiating a larger stake of equity compensation as part of your pay package. With companies looking to conserve cash and find effective ways to recruit, retain, and motivate executives and key employees, your interest in this type of compensation may be well received. This article explores the possibilities you may want to consider if this opportunity arises.
Alisa J. Baker
You may find a gap between what you expect from your equity compensation and what you receive. Often the problem stems from the complexity of the related documents and rules. Learn about them, and understand why you must focus on conflicting or inconsistent provisions.
Alisa J. Baker
NEW! Part 1 looked at the problems of conflicting or inconsistent provisions among different documents. Part 2 discusses which existing documents and rules nonfounder executives must consider when negotiating for equity compensation during the early (pre-public) stages of a company's development and growth.
Mark Miller
UPDATED! For employees and executives, international travel and relocation are increasingly common. The taxation of "mobile employees" is always complex, and never more than with equity compensation. Part 1 introduces the key concepts and rules, including the sourcing and apportioning of income.
Mark Miller
International assignments or relocations can present attractive opportunities for career advancement. However, the taxation of equity compensation for mobile employees raises complex issues. Part 2 looks at specific scenarios, withholding taxes, and tax equalization.
Richard Friedman
UPDATED! Get a sense of what you should, and should not, expect in the terms of your stock option grant. This survey of 300 companies in 2007 looks at trends in vesting schedules, post-termination exercise rules, and other plan features (includes some details on restricted stock grants).
Edwin L. Miller, Jr.
Understand what could happen to your stock options or restricted stock in venture capital financings, in an acquisition, or in an IPO. Part 1 looks at M&A deals; Part 2 analyzes IPOs.
Richard Friedman
Your company just gave you a stock option grant, or your existing options are underwater. You wonder: "What are my stock options worth? Are they worth anything at all?" Learn about different valuation methods, including Black-Scholes.
Kathleen Pender
San Francisco Chronicle
Companies are not required to tell departing employees how many vested options they have and how long they have to exercise them. Along with rules for your other employee benefits, you need to know post-termination option-exercise rules.
Kate Victory
UPDATED! How typical are your grants of stock options or restricted stock? Compare their terms and provisions with the results of the NASPP's
Domestic Stock Plan Design & Administration Survey.
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Changes in executive and equity pay practices during the current downturn may eventually be far more wrenching than those caused by the 2000–2002 market drop. The focus in stock compensation has shifted from adjusting grant practices for mandatory expensing to questions about...
The likelihood depends mainly on your position, its salary grade, and/or...
If your option was granted with a graded vesting schedule, you are allowed to exercise the vested portion of the option grant, but most commonly you forfeit the remainder...
Yes. You forfeit whatever stock has not vested...
In most instances, stock grants are subject to the same types of practical limitations as negotiations for your cash compensation. For example, an employer may...
First, you may be eligible to receive only NQSOs, so read the FAQs on the requirements of ISOs...
Private companies sometimes partly use stock options (NQSOs, not ISOs) or stock grants, along with or instead of cash, to compensate consultants and independent contractors (separate from grants that public and private companies make to nonemployee directors). The terms of these grants can be...
Though this varies from industry to industry and among peer companies, most companies use a combination of...
No law requires this. It is your obligation to know your...
This is a controversial practice. Previously, in some new-hire situations your company might have been more flexible. Now companies try...
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