Most publicly-traded issuers are interested in ideas that could help increase the life expectancy of the share reserve under its stockholder-approved equity incentive plan.  The purpose of this “Tip of the Week” is to discuss the use of “inducement grants” as one of the many ideas to consider. Background If you look at an equity incentive plan’s annual life cycle on a per-key employee basis, it is likely that the largest share grant occurred at the…

Publicly-traded issuers losing (or about to lose) Emerging Growth Company (“EGC”) status will have to include a CD&A within their proxy statement.  Since CD&A disclosure significantly drives compensation design, issuers losing EGC status will need to consider various business points that will likely change their compensatory programs.  Such business points include: (i) memorializing a compensation philosophy, (ii) establishing performance incentives that “disclose” well, (iii) discussing compensation governance mechanisms, and (iv) deciding whether to appease the thoughts from institutional shareholder advisory services…

If an employer grants one of its employees a restricted stock award, should that employee make an 83(b) election at the time the restricted stock award is granted?  What is the upside to the employee if he or she makes an 83(b) election?  What are the risks to the employee?  The answers to those questions are this “Tip of the Week.”…

On September 13, 2018, the SEC withdrew two no-action letters issued in 2004 to two proxy advisory firms.  Some folks (like me!) are hopeful that the withdrawal of these no-action letters is a first step (albeit a small step) towards proxy advisory firm reform.  If you would like to learn more about this topic, please see our Firm’s client alert entitled “Proxy Advisory Firm Guidance Withdrawn by the SEC,” which our Firm published this morning.…

Tomorrow I am speaking on “Trends in Designing Performance-Based Equity Awards” at the HC&B Total Rewards Summit in Houston, Texas.  Discussion points include: (i) applicable forms of equity incentives conducive to performance-based awards, (ii) the more common performance metrics used to drive behavior, (iii) typical payout levels and performance periods, (iv) total shareholder return formulas, (v) administrative issues associated with accelerated vesting provisions upon retirement, (vi) maximizing capital gains with 83(b) elections, and (vii) recent revisions…

Though relative Total Shareholder Return (“TSR”) programs offer no direct line of sight for the executive to chase the business goal, such programs continue to remain the most common metric within an issuer’s performance-based equity program.  In designing these programs, a common question is how payouts could be adjusted if the issuer’s stockholders realize negative returns and lose money during the measurement period.  The answer to that question is this “Tip of the Week.”…

We previously posted on grandfather treatment under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Act”), as clarified by Notice 2018-68.  This post is an extension of our prior post and is intended to highlight that an issuer’s PFO is subject to a slightly different analysis with respect to Grandfather Treatment (defined below).…