No. of Recommendations: 4
For me, it's not the difference between the two methods (you're right, it's largely a wash), it's that this is highlighting the comp itself.
(a) What is the current market value of the shares issued as employee compensation in the last decade?
(b) What is the current market value of the shares created via option exercise of options issued to staff, net of the proceeds to the company at strike due to exercise?
(c) What was the total amount expensed as compensation in the company's books for the sum of those two?
I see the argument, but I can only partially agree with it, because it seems like assigning fault because the firm did extraordinarily well.
Two then-identical companies ten years ago granted equal-sized equity awards to employees. Firm A muddles along without ever increasing stock price. Firm B quintuples in value. Yet we get mad at Firm B because their ex post equity awards turned out to be incredibly valuable. Seems not quite right.
