TheCount Financial Grouphas sought to reward its staff and franchisees with the allocation of more than eight million options at $0.40 a piece, worth a total of $3.26 million dollars.
The options are exercisable to mid November 2006 and are broken down into two types with 1.78 million going to employees and 6.37 million being allocated to franchisees within the group.
Count managing director Barry Lambert says the options have been issued for the 2001 calendar and were earmarked in the group’s prospectus at the time of listing in December 2000.
He also says the group expects to allocate further options for the 2002 calendar year with employees of the group set to receive options based on one per cent of the listed shares, currently at 220 million, resulting in an option allocation of 2.2 million.
Franchisees will also receive further options later this year but Lambert says this figure may be lower than last year as allocations were based on performance. He says given the current market the group expects this to impact on adviser performance and in turn the level of allocations they receive.
With the allocation of this latest round of options the group also has more than 29 million options, most of which are held by staff and franchisees of the group. The group also has 220 million listed shares which are currently valued at $0.43, giving the group a market capitalisation of $94 million.
