Business News
Schibsted ASA (SCH) – New performance based share acquisition programme replaces option scheme
Tuesday 20. April 2010 - The Board of Directors of Schibsted proposes to the Annual General Meeting to establish a new joint long term incentive programme. The new programme is a three year rolling performance based share acquisition programme. It will replace the existing options scheme for the group top management and several different incentive programmes for managers in growth companies of Schibsted.
The background for the proposal is the desire to contribute to key managers holding more of the Group’s stocks to ensure that management and shareholders to a larger extent than today have the same interest. Furthermore, the new share acquisition programme implies a joint framework for targeted performance based incentive plans for key management in large parts of the group. The programme is compliant with EU guidelines for remuneration of management of listed companies, first and foremost Recommendation 2004/913/EC, and The Norwegian Code of Practice for Corporate Governance (section 12) and The Norwegian Corporate Governance Board’s comments to this.
In total, the new share acquisition programme will include around 45 participants in 2010. The number of participants is in the same range as the programmes it replaces. For the Schibsted Group, it is expected that the total cost for the share acquisition programme will be in the same range as the total cost for the programmes that are terminated.
In the new share acquisition programme, each participant will be granted a defined Basic amount, which is a fixed per cent of the basic salary. 1/3 of the Basic amount, after tax, must be used to acquire Schibsted shares. The rest, up to 2/3 of the amount, must be earned over a three years period. It will only be earned in full if certain financial results in the individual business unit are reached. In case a minimum performance hurdle is not reached, only the first 1/3 of the Basic amount will be paid out when the three year period ends. The amount will be settled in Schibsted shares.
The participants of the share acquisitions programme are required to hold a minimum amount of Schibsted shares. For the CEO, the minimum requirement is shares worth at least twice his annual basic salary. The part of the shares that are acquired at the start of the programme (1/3 of the Basic amount) can not be sold during the three year period.