THE MOTHER OF STOCK OPTION GRANT RATES.
Ron, thanks for compiling the stock option grant rates for Intel in #reply-18938614. With a vote coming up at SEBL on June 11th whether or not to expense stock options, I thought it might be interesting to check out SEBL's stock option grant rates over the years. Intel's grant rates look positively tame and reasonable compared to SEBL's, which have been literally off the charts imo. I have never seen a study, even from generous compensation consultants, justifying a high grant rate like SEBL's. The article linked below suggests that even a 3% grant rate, which is more than double what the average company grant rate was a decade ago, could be very difficult to justify in the long run.
businessweek.com
Over the seven year period I looked at, SEBL averaged a 21% stock option grant rate per year---adding up the grant rates for the seven years and dividing by 7 years. If you have time, please look over my numbers and let me know whether you agree with them. It is amazing to me that such a blatant regard to one's fiduciary responsibility to shareholders--imo---is legal, and in Tom Siebel's case, is rewarded by paying this self serving CEO hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. In 2001, Tom Siebel was even the third highest paid tech executive in the country. Hopefully things will change going forward. It looks like maybe Tom Seibel got the message in fiscal 2002, but SEBL still has a boatload of stock option overhang to deal with.
Shares Outstanding Options Granted
Beginning of Year During Year
Year (Thousands) (Thousands) Grant Rate
1996 16,498 9,701 58.9%
1997 33,604 4,557 13.6%
1998 85,864 18,731 21.8%
1999 182,036 26,511 14.6%
2000 402,779 46,764 11.6%
2001 442,392 110,836 25.1%
2002 446,950 5,887 1.3%
Regards, Huey |
