Check Point (Nasdaq: CHKP) staff and managers hold 26.5 million options at the average exercise price of $16.14, representing a profit of $313 million for the employees (on the basis of the difference between the current share price and the option exercise price). This emerges from the form 20F for 2001 that Check Point submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Of the 26.5 million options held by the company’s employees, 9.6 million are exercisable immediately at an average price of $10.74, representing a benefit of $105 million.
Despite the sharp drop in the value of Check Point’s stock, 80% of the options held by the company’s employees are still in the money, and are exercisable at prices ranging from $0.02 to $0.17.
Check Point does not provide figures or the names of people includes in various share option schemes, but the prevailing assumption is that the people in question are top executives, including two of the company’s founders, Gil Shwed and Marius Nacht, as well as company president Jerry Ungerman, VP Products Dorit Dor and VP Operations Michal Eitan.
The document further indicates that in the past four years 33.9 million options held by employees were converted into ordinary shares, representing 14% of the company’s present equity of 242.3 million shares.
Company president and CEO Gil Shwed currently holds 27 million shares, representing 11% of the company’s equity, and worth $604 million. Senior vice president Marius Nacht now holds 25.4 million shares, representing 10.4% of the company’s equity, and worth $567 million.
Shlomo Kramer, one of the company’s three co-founders and a former vice president, now holds 13.8 million shares, representing 5.7% of the company’s equity, and worth $308 million.
Check Point had 1,178 employees at the end of February 2002, compared with 1,137 in March 2001.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 8 April, 2002