Interesting for you to bring this up. Quite often a strategy...

Interesting for you to bring this up. Quite often a strategy myself and other Insto’s use to lock in a profit when exercising options or taking placement stock is to short sell the company in question, exercise options/take placement stock, and return stock to lender to close out the position. The difference between the shorted price and exercise/placement price is the profit, with very little risk. Personally I would never exercise options without implementing this strategy, as there is a huge amount of risk between the time you decide to exercise options (which is when it’s announced to market) and the stock actually being issued. Same goes for placement stock, if the company resumes trading above placement price you short it to lock in a profit and forget about being greedy. Ends in tears!