esh - the oppies that they exercised had an expiry date of 31...

esh - the oppies that they exercised had an expiry date of 31 Dec 18. They do have another big tranche of oppies that do not expire until later in 2019 so were they to hit the motherlode in the coming months they would also hit the jackpot with those oppies.

The argument I've seen for using the cashless exercise mechanism is that without it directors would be forced to sell some of their existing shares to be able to exercise their options and with small lightly traded stocks like Stavely the sight of a director selling would seriously crunch the share price. But honestly that sounds more like a rationalisation than an explanation and it does have the appearance of "money for nothin' and chicks for free". Were directors actually required to use cash to exercise their oppies then at least the company's coffers would get a top up.