Counting the Costs and Balancing the Benefits
Financial Engineering for ESPPs. Fidelity Investments and Infinite Equity teamed up to explore how ESPP elements fit together to help companies engineer a plan to manage financial implications and deliver balanced benefits.
The Case for an ESPP at IPO
A unique opportunity to ensure an ongoing ownership culture. 2021 has been a banner year for IPOs, and particularly for companies going public via a special-purpose acquisition company (“SPAC”). Expectations were high coming into the year, as companies prolonged the decision to go public during the pandemic, but have dramatically bounced back. This, coupled with…
The Forgotten Participant: Nonqualified ESPPs for Your Essential Workers
Background and Current Market Environment The COVID-19 pandemic has placed compensation and benefits front and center, particularly for front-line employees (“essential workers”) like grocery store, warehouse, and food-service workers who do not have the luxury to work from home. These employees do not necessarily have adequate safety gear, access to health care or paid family…
Relative TSR Plan Design Checklist
Performance shares earned contingent on a performance metric of Relative Total Shareholder Return (RTSR) is the most prevalent metric seen globally. However, the design of a RTSR plan can be quite challenging if not done appropriately. The checklist below is intended to provide a high-level summary of the design process, and some of the considerations throughout the…
Outperform Slopes in a Relative TSR Plan
Performance shares earned contingent on a performance metric of Relative Total Shareholder Return (“RTSR”) is the most prevalent globally as seen in the marketplace. There are several forms in which a Relative TSR plan can be designed (for example, a percentile rank plan or an outperform plan), as seen in the Alternative Types of RTSR…
The Case for an ESPP at IPO Guide
Pre-IPO is a unique and exciting time in the lifecycle of a company, and with careful planning companies can take advantage of that to maximize their ESPP.
Accounting for Performance Awards
As more and more companies grant performance equity, understanding the valuation and accounting impacts of these awards becomes more and more essential. This article will outline the key points to consider when accounting for performance equity awards.
Retirement Eligible Employees and “Implicit” Holding Periods
Employees with equity awards are often vested (for accounting purposes) as soon as they become retirement eligible. If delivery of the awards occurs after the retirement eligibility date, there is an implied holding period and the fair value of the awards should be discounted. Make sure to take advantage!
