Trends in Private Company Stock Plans and How They Effect Advisors

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According to a recent post by Barbra Baksa of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, a soon to be released NASPP’s survey on equity compensation at private companies found the following five trends: #1: Stock options are the equity vehicle of choice, with 74% of respondents granting them. #2: Private companies are committed to ISOs, with close to 60% of private companies that offer stock options granting them. #3: For most private companies, when deciding whom to grant to,...

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Equity Compensation Recipients Want to Avoid Mistakes, Here's How Advisors Can Help!

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IMAGE: Hiva Sharifi/Unsplash While the majority of workers view their equity compensation as a critical tool for building long-term wealth, a recent survey from Schwab Stock Plan Services found that, out of the one-thousand equity compensation recipients surveyed, a mere twenty-four percent had exercised options or sold shares. With over a third of the participants claiming that equity compensation was the main factor in accepting their position, it begs the question, why are the number of employees exercising their options...

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Continuing Education Credit for Stock Plan Advisors

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Need continuing education credits? In its Learning Center, myStockOptions.com offers continuing professional education for a few different certifications: Certified Financial Planners (CFP) Certified Private Wealth Advisors (CPWA) Certified Investment Management Analysts (CIMA) Certified Equity Professionals (CEP) In total, the myStockOptions.com Learning Center offers: 15 continuing education credits for CFPs (50% of the total requirement) 15 continuing education credits for CPWAs and CIMAs (37.5% of the total requirement) 30 continuing education credits for CEPs (100% of the total requirement) The programs...

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Legislative Update: Empowering Employees Through Stock Ownership Act Resurfaces In The Senate

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IMAGE: Jordan Kidds / 123rf.com This blog post is provided by myStockOptions.com, a leading source of educational content on all types of stock compensation. While stock options continue to be popular at startups and other pre-IPO companies, employees cannot sell stock at exercise to pay the exercise price and the taxes on the income. Moreover, under current law those taxes cannot be delayed. Last year, an encouraging legislative proposal was introduced in the House of Representatives to address this issue....

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Five Trends in Restricted Stock/Units

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Barbara Baksa, Executive Director of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP) identifies five trends in the usage of restricted stock and units, from the 2016 Domestic Stock Plan Design Survey, co-sponsored by the NASPP and Deloitte Consulting. Trend #1: Use of time-based stock grants and awards is still on the rise. The percentage of companies issuing stock grants and awards increased by 10 percent since our last survey (up from 81 percent in our 2013 survey to 89...

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More Employees Rank Company Stock as Their Top Benefit

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BOSTON — For many people, their most important workplace benefit is a 401(k) or health insurance, but for a growing number of employees, a company stock plan is their top benefit. According to research1 from Fidelity Investments®, 16 percent of employees say company stock is their most important benefit, up from 10 percent in 2014. For employers, company stock plans can help attract and retain top talent. Almost two-thirds of employees (63 percent) said that participating in their company stock...

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Equity Compensation Advisor News: July/August 2016

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IMAGE: LinkedIn Sales Navigator / Unsplash Here's the latest news, tips and information for financial advisors that help clients with the diversification of their company stock and options. Helping Clients Get More From Their Equity Compensation: Companies grant more than $110 billion in equity awards every year, and many have concerns about how much employees value these awards.  UBS research across industries and service providers found that two out of three participants do not place significant value on the equity awards...

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Companies Trending Away from Time Based Awards

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In a recent Equilar blog titled “Companies Just Say No to “Pay for Pulse,” the author cites a recent study of Equilar 100 companies that found 70% of the executive pay mix is now performance based.  In another report (Equilar’s 2015 Equity Trends Report), “nearly 70% of S&P 1500 companies used performance awards in 2014, up from about 50% in 2010.” There has been a great deal of evolution in the mix of equity incentive compensation vehicles and terms over the last...

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Updated Survey of Share Ownership Guidelines and Stock Retention Requirements

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From the Ayco Compensation & Benefits Digest: March 18, 2016 Share ownership guidelines remain a common feature in place at an overwhelming majority of public companies. The basic premise of mandating ownership of company stock is that the interests of senior management will more closely align with those of shareholders. In the current “say‐on‐pay” era, this is perceived to be of importance. Whether share ownership results in better corporate or stock performance remains to be proven. We have been tracking the...

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10 Companies with Generous Stock and Option Programs

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By Michal Addady from Fortune Company stock and option programs (Equity Compensation) can serve as additional ways to pay workers beyond wages or salaries. These programs supplement base pay to provide competitive compensation, can act as a recognition tool to award employees for good work, and they help ensure that employees’ interests are aligned with shareholders. These 10 employers from Fortune‘s 100 Best Companies to Work For list understand the importance of those three objectives and offer their employees ample...

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