Mail.ru to launch new program of personnel incentives, 5% of shares may go to it
MOSCOW. Feb 26 (Interfax) - The board of directors of Mail.ru Group have approved a new four-year program for motivating employees, the company said.
The new program is based on the principle of restricted stock unit (the right to receive shares that are issued in the future), as distinct from the 2010 options program, which ended in 2014.
For the implementation of the new program, 5% of Mail.ru shares may go toward it. These shares will be issued among employees in 2018-2022. "The RSU's have a 4-year vesting and the programme will expire at the end of 2022," the company said in a statement.
Mail.ru may issue 10,977,971 ordinary shares for the program, which will be placed in favor of Mail.ru Employee Benefit Trustees Ltd.
"Additionally we have extended the expiration date of the existing unexercised options for current employees to 2022 from 2018," the statement said.
"At the end of 2014 our long-term incentive programme, based around options authorised at the time of the Company's IPO in 2010 substantially came to an end. Our team remains our most valuable asset. The retention of engineering talent is key to the long term success of the Company. As such, the board has approved a new long-term incentive plan based around restricted stock units equivalent to up to 5% of total shares outstanding," the statement cited Mail.ru CEO and board chairman Dmitry Grishin as saying.
"These actions will help us both recruit and retain the highest quality staff," he said.
On December 31 of last year there were 209,104,211 shares in the company's charter capital, including 11,500,100 Class A shares (not traded on the exchange, having 25 votes each) and 197,604,111 ordinary shares with one vote each, GDR can be issued for them.
The majority shareholder of the Mail.ru Group is Alisher Usmanov, whose companies own a 17.9% economic interest and 64.6% of votes. South African media holding Naspers has a 28.9% economic interest and 12.5% of votes. Chinese internet company Tencent owns a 7.8% economic interest and 3.34% of votes. Grishin owns a 1.93% economic interest and 0.83% of votes.
The company has a free float of 94,832,211 GDR, which is 45.3% of capital and 19.55% of votes.
