Sunday, July 16, 2006

The Big Picture: Post-9/11 Option Grants Under Scrutiny

This is sleazy enough, God knows, but it also reminds me, while we are busy spying on everyone's banking transactions, why have we not found out, and made public the names of the people who bought the put-options on American Airlines, etc, right before 9/11?

The Big Picture: Post-9/11 Option Grants Under Scrutiny:

On Sept. 21, 2001, rescuers dug through the smoldering remains of the World Trade Center. Across town, families buried two firefighters found a week earlier. At Fort Drum, on the edge of New York's Adirondacks, soldiers readied for deployment halfway across the world.

Boards of directors of scores of American companies were also busy that day. They handed out millions of bargain-priced stock options to their top executives.

The terrorist attack shut the U.S. stock market for days. When it reopened Sept. 17, stocks skidded more than 14% over five days, in the worst full week for the Dow Jones Industrial Average since Germany invaded France in May 1940. But for recipients of options, the lower their company's stock price when options are awarded the better, since the options grant a right to buy shares at that price for years to come. The grants set recipients up for millions of dollars in profit if the shares recovered.

No comments: