Creating & editing new share and option classes
As your company grows you may have different share classes or option schemes. Or you may need to create new instruments like warrants or convertibles. These are all referred to as “Instruments”. This page explains how to create those instruments so that subsequently record sales or awards to shareholders and employees.
Adding a New Instrument
Step 1: Navigate to Manage equity
Click Manage equity in the side panel
Select Instruments & Pools
Click the Add new Instrument button
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Step 2: Complete the fields on the Add New Instrument form
For shares | For options | Required? | |
|---|---|---|---|
Instrument type | Either share, option or other | same | Required |
Instrument name | The share class name - e.g. Ordinary, or Series A | The option scheme name - e.g. EMI or CSOP | Required |
Nominal value | The currency and nominal value of each share (see here) | na | Required |
Shares which the options purchase | na | The underlying share class which the options purchase when exercised (see here) | Optional |
Standard exercise price | na | The “default” currency/price to exercise this option | Optional |
Standard vesting period (months) | ✔️ | ✔️ | Optional |
Standard cliff (months) | ✔️ | ✔️ | Optional |
💡 Setting a Standard exercise price for the instrument will save you time when making individual awards because this price will be selected by default. You can always override it of a particular award will have a different exercise price
💡 Similarly, setting a Standard vesting period/cliff means that vesting pattern will be selected for all future awards. But again, you can override the vesting parameters for any particular award if needed.
Step 3: Upload any documents
You can upload documents associated with each instrument. For example, you may want to upload the scheme rules for your option scheme; or you may want to upload the Warrant document for a warrant.
Uploading documents is optional, and there is no limit to the number of documents you can upload (though please note that each one must be a pdf of no more than 5MB file size).
💡 Documents which you choose to upload will be visible to each of the holders of the instrument. That way, you can simply refer them to their Stakeholder portal if they want to see a copy of the document.
When uploading a document you must provide the following information
For Individual stakeholders | Required? | |
|---|---|---|
Document type | E.g. Scheme rules, Company articles, … | Required |
Document name | E.g. “EMI Scheme rules version 2” | Required |
Editing an existing Instrument
To edit an existing instrument, navigate to the Manage equity > Instruments & Pools tab, and click the edit icon next to the relevant instrument.
🚨 Any changes you make to the Instrument’s Name, Type, Nominal value (for shares) or Underlying share class (for options) will affect all holdings of that instrument including ones previously awarded. Similarly, if you change or add to the Documents attached to an Instrument, your changes will apply to all holdings. If you only want to impact future awards, then you should create a new instrument instead.
Changes which you make to the Standard exercise price or the Standard vesting period/cliff of an instrument will not affect previous awards. They will only affect the default value for future awards.
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