Strategic Timing and Backdating of Executive Stock Option Exercises

Strategic Timing and Backdating of Executive Stock Option Exercises PDF Author: David C. Cicero
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description
This paper considers executive stock option exercise timing in light of the potential for backdating of exercise dates. I find that 29 (16) percent of executive option exercises were not associated with same-day disposition of shares before (after) the August 29, 2002, enactment of more restrictive SEC reporting requirements for insider transactions under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. I interpret this as evidence executives often exercise options with the intention of holding the acquired shares for at least a year in order to qualify for long-term capital gains tax treatment on stock appreciation beyond the exercise date. Exercises accompanied by stock disposition are associated with a stock return peak, and exercises not accompanied by stock disposition are associated with a stock return trough. Further tests indicate that in the pre-Sarbanes-Oxley period executives timed exercises ex ante based on private information regardless of the stock disposition strategy, and they often backdated exercise dates when they held the acquired shares or disposed of shares back to the company only. In the post-Sarbanes-Oxley period, executives appear to have benefited through ex ante information timing only.

Strategic Timing and Backdating of Executive Stock Option Exercises

Strategic Timing and Backdating of Executive Stock Option Exercises PDF Author: David C. Cicero
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description
This paper considers executive stock option exercise timing in light of the potential for backdating of exercise dates. I find that 29 (16) percent of executive option exercises were not associated with same-day disposition of shares before (after) the August 29, 2002, enactment of more restrictive SEC reporting requirements for insider transactions under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. I interpret this as evidence executives often exercise options with the intention of holding the acquired shares for at least a year in order to qualify for long-term capital gains tax treatment on stock appreciation beyond the exercise date. Exercises accompanied by stock disposition are associated with a stock return peak, and exercises not accompanied by stock disposition are associated with a stock return trough. Further tests indicate that in the pre-Sarbanes-Oxley period executives timed exercises ex ante based on private information regardless of the stock disposition strategy, and they often backdated exercise dates when they held the acquired shares or disposed of shares back to the company only. In the post-Sarbanes-Oxley period, executives appear to have benefited through ex ante information timing only.

Executive Stock Option Exercises

Executive Stock Option Exercises PDF Author: Jie Cai
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Using a large sample of executive stock option exercises by the CEOs of U.S. firms during 1997-2005, I identify three popular exercise mechanisms with different backdating incentives. A cash exercise offers an incentive to exercise at a lower stock price, a stock exercise offers an incentive to exercise at a higher stock price, and a cashless exercise offers little opportunity for backdating. Given the different directions of incentive effects, it becomes critical to separate the three types of option exercises. Empirical results show that for cash exercises the average abnormal stock return is significantly negative before the reported exercise date and significantly positive afterwards. In contrast, stock exercises have the opposite stock return pattern. The market return follows similar but weaker patterns. I estimate that prior to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) around one out of eight cash exercises and one out of twenty stock exercises were backdated or otherwise manipulated. Finally, all return patterns become weaker after SOX shortens the reporting period.

Getting Started In Employee Stock Options

Getting Started In Employee Stock Options PDF Author: John Olagues
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470570792
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
An A to Z guide for understanding employee stock options (ESOs). In Getting Started In Employee Stock Optionsauthors John Olagues and John Summa provide a full understanding of ESOs and demonstrate how to make the most of them. Page by page this author team, a highly experienced options market maker and a professional trader, share essential information that you're probably not hearing anywhere else. This book contains the keys to managing and hedging ESO opportunities in addition to important tax and valuation guidance appropriate for the highest executives to the non-officer managers and the newly arrived employee. Examines essential ESO issues, including tax consequences, risks, and industry pitfalls Written by an experienced pair of stock option experts Enables employees and executives to make more informed decisions regarding their stock options grants Written in a straightforward and accessible style, Getting Started In Employee Stock Options will help protect the value of your options, help you avoid costly mistakes, and allow you to take advantage of certain friendly tax rules. Some of the world's foremost authorities on options have endorsed Getting Started inEmployee Stock Options.

Executive Stock Option Exercises and Inside Information

Executive Stock Option Exercises and Inside Information PDF Author: Jennifer N. Carpenter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This article examines whether insiders use private information to time the exercises of their executive stock options. Before May 1991, insiders had to hold the stock acquired through option exercise for 6 months. Exercises from that regime precede significantly positive abnormal stock performance, suggesting the use of inside information to time exercises. By contrast, we find little evidence of such timing since insiders have been able to sell acquired shares immediately. Now, such timing should show up as negative abnormal stock returns after option exercise. However, we find negative stock performance only after exercises by top managers at small firms.

Employee Stock Options: Exercise Timing, Hedging, And Valuation

Employee Stock Options: Exercise Timing, Hedging, And Valuation PDF Author: Tim Siu-tang Leung
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9813209658
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Employee stock options (ESOs) are an integral component of compensation in the US. In fact, almost all S&P 500 companies grant options to their top executives, and the total value accounts for almost half of the total pay for their CEOs. In view of the extensive use and significant cost of ESOs to firms, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has mandated expensing ESOs since 2004. This gives rise to the need to create a reasonable valuation method for these options for most firms that grant ESOs to their employees. The valuation of ESOs involves a number of challenging issues, and is thus an important active research area in Accounting, Corporate Finance, and Financial Mathematics.In this exciting book, the author discusses the practical and challenging problems surrounding ESOs from a financial mathematician's perspective. This book provides a systematic overview of the contractual features of ESOs and thoughtful discussions of different valuation approaches, with emphasis on three major aspects: (i) hedging strategies; (ii) exercise timing; and (iii) valuation methodologies. In addition to addressing each of these categories, this book also highlights their connections and combined effects of the cost of ESOs to firms, as well as examines the implications to modeling and valuation approaches. The book features a unique approach that combines stochastic modeling and control techniques with option pricing theory, and provides formulas and numerical schemes for fast implementation and clear illustration.

Executive Compensation in Imperfect Financial Markets

Executive Compensation in Imperfect Financial Markets PDF Author: Jay Cullen
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1782549293
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
This important book discusses the issue of executive compensation in Anglo-American financial markets following the financial crisis. The book begins by contextualizing the problem facing financial institutions in the US and the UK and argues that appr

Litigation Services Handbook

Litigation Services Handbook PDF Author: Roman L. Weil
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118237404
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1022

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Book Description
Here’s all the information you need to provide your clients with superior litigation support services. Get up to speed quickly, with the aid of top experts, on trial preparation and testimony presentation, deposition, direct examination, and cross-examination. Authoritative and highly practical, this is THE essential guide for any financial expert wanting to prosper in this lucrative new area, the lawyers who hire them, and litigants who benefit from their efforts. "This work of amazing breadth and depth covers the central issues that arise in financial expert testimony. It is an essential reference for counsel and practitioners in the field."—Joseph A. Grundfest, The William A. Franke Professor of Law and Business, Stanford Law School; former commissioner, United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

Financial Derivatives

Financial Derivatives PDF Author: Rob Quail
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470499109
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
Essential insights on the various aspects of financial derivatives If you want to understand derivatives without getting bogged down by the mathematics surrounding their pricing and valuation, Financial Derivatives is the book for you. Through in-depth insights gleaned from years of financial experience, Robert Kolb and James Overdahl clearly explain what derivatives are and how you can prudently use them within the context of your underlying business activities. Financial Derivatives introduces you to the wide range of markets for financial derivatives. This invaluable guide offers a broad overview of the different types of derivatives-futures, options, swaps, and structured products-while focusing on the principles that determine market prices. This comprehensive resource also provides a thorough introduction to financial derivatives and their importance to risk management in a corporate setting. Filled with helpful tables and charts, Financial Derivatives offers a wealth of knowledge on futures, options, swaps, financial engineering, and structured products. Discusses what derivatives are and how you can prudently implement them within the context of your underlying business activities Provides thorough coverage of financial derivatives and their role in risk management Explores financial derivatives without getting bogged down by the mathematics surrounding their pricing and valuation This informative guide will help you unlock the incredible potential of financial derivatives.

Executive Compensation and Financial Accounting

Executive Compensation and Financial Accounting PDF Author: David Aboody
Publisher: Now Publishers Inc
ISBN: 1601983425
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Executive Compensation and Financial Accounting provides research perspectives on the interface between financial reporting and disclosure policies and executive compensation. In particular, it focuses on two important dimensions: - the effects of compensation-based incentives on executives' financial accounting and disclosure choices, and - the role of financial reporting and income tax regulations in shaping executive compensation practices. Executive Compensation and Financial Accounting examines the key dimensions of the relation between financial accounting and executive compensation. Specifically, the authors examine the extent to which compensation plans create incentives for executives to make particular financial reporting and disclosure choices. They also examine the extent to which accounting regulation creates incentives for firms to design particular compensation plans for their executives.

Pay Without Performance

Pay Without Performance PDF Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674020634
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The company is under-performing, its share price is trailing, and the CEO gets...a multi-million-dollar raise. This story is familiar, for good reason: as this book clearly demonstrates, structural flaws in corporate governance have produced widespread distortions in executive pay. Pay without Performance presents a disconcerting portrait of managers' influence over their own pay--and of a governance system that must fundamentally change if firms are to be managed in the interest of shareholders. Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried demonstrate that corporate boards have persistently failed to negotiate at arm's length with the executives they are meant to oversee. They give a richly detailed account of how pay practices--from option plans to retirement benefits--have decoupled compensation from performance and have camouflaged both the amount and performance-insensitivity of pay. Executives' unwonted influence over their compensation has hurt shareholders by increasing pay levels and, even more importantly, by leading to practices that dilute and distort managers' incentives. This book identifies basic problems with our current reliance on boards as guardians of shareholder interests. And the solution, the authors argue, is not merely to make these boards more independent of executives as recent reforms attempt to do. Rather, boards should also be made more dependent on shareholders by eliminating the arrangements that entrench directors and insulate them from their shareholders. A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, Pay without Performance points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.