These were 4 year old director remuneration options awarded when Emefcy listed on the ASX.
There was a 2 year escrow period of these meaning that they really only had relevance from Dec 2017 until now.
Richard Irving had 500,000 (converted 27th Aug 2018).
Eytan Levy had 1 million.
Ross Haighghat had 500,000.
Peter Marks had 500,000.
There are complications around the conversion and sale of these types of options, as I believe they sit within the ESOP framework, and written company permission needs to be granted for conversion and sale must only occur during certain periods and is quite public. To look at today's shareprice and say "it is telling that they weren't converted ...it is a sign" is a bit of a deception, as in reality, they could have been converted and sold off anytime between Dec 2017 and now when the shareprice had reached 60 cents and the directors could have made an immediate 50% gain had they sold straight away. Also not sure about the internal company discussions and internal optics around converting these (as the China plan mooted by previous management has not necessarily materialized as envisaged), as at the 2017 merger new directors were given 93 cent options, although these previously mentioned directors also had 30 cent options that were converted in 2018.
The same shareholders who cry foul at "freebies" being given out as part of remuneration packages, or dilution occurring due to CR's, then cry foul when the same "freebies" are not converted and $800,000 in dilution is avoided. Also ignoring the point that when the shareprice has been higher these directors could easily have bought and sold if the intention was to simply make quick $$$ at our expense. Options are much preferable in my opinion to a cash consideration as at least there is some level of company ASX shareprice performance tied into the remuneration. At least if options are converted more cash flows in towards the company rather than out of their bank accounts.
While it doesn't show great faith that Haighghat and Marks didn't convert at 40 cents, in terms of prudent capital management, if I asked any investor today to spend $200,000 on something worth $195,000, it does not seem like a wise financial decision. Marks should have circa 2.7 million shares under Lampam/personal entities, while Haighghat has a somewhat masked interest within the Employee Equity Administration holding (about 10% of the 14.1 million shares). They still have as much interest as any of us in future performance.
