Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) continued to cut back its staff in 2019, when the streamlining plan initiated by CEO Kare Schultz in late 2017 was completed. Teva's expanded (10K) report for 2019 shows that Teva had 40,039 employees at the end of 2019, compared with 42,535 at the end of 2018 and 51,792 at the end of 2017 - a reduction of nearly 12,000 employees, 22.7% of the total. The number is still declining in early 2020, because at the company's press conference last week, Schultz said that the number had fallen by 13,000 since the streamlining plan began.
According to the report, the number of Teva's employees in Israel was 3,961 at the end of 2019, a reduction of 2,284 (36.7%) in two years, including 932 in 2019.
Teva's share price declined 36% in 2019, varying between $6.16 and $20.01, with the average being $11.50. Only 11,000 options held by Teva employees were exercised in 2019 at an average exercise price of $17. 8.3 million options held by employees expired, the average exercise price of which was over $42, far from being in the money. Teva's share price has climbed 35.7% to $13.20 since the beginning of this year, reflecting a $14.4 billion market cap. At the end of 2019, the company's employees held 26.6 million options currently exercisable, but their average exercise price is $43.40, far higher than the market price.
Another company that published its expanded report for 2019 is big data connectivity chip company Mellanox Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:MLNX), whose options picture is completely different. Mellanox announced its sale to Nvidia for $7.36 billion in 2019 at $125 per share. The deal has not been completed because of a delay in obtaining regulatory approval in China (with the trade war and the coronavirus outbreak in the background).
Nevertheless, Mellanox's share price rose 26.8% in 2019, in which its average share price was $110. Mellanox's employees exercised 219,000 options in 2019 at a $34.60 exercise price, making the benefit from exercise of the options $16.5 million. The company's employees held 274,000 options at the end of the year at a $63.50 exercise price, compared with the current share price of $123, reflecting a $6.8 billion market cap for Mellanox. Mellanox's employees also hold a larger number of blocked shares - some 3.3 million shares, after 1.6 million more blocked shares were issued last year.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 23, 2020
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