Kodak C.E.O. Got Stock Options Day Before News of Loan Sent Stock Soaring [View all]

Source: New York Times

Kodak C.E.O. Got Stock Options Day Before News of Loan Sent Stock Soaring
The stock options suddenly were worth about $50 million -- the latest instance of extraordinary good timing by corporate executives.

By Jesse Drucker and Ellen Gabler
July 31, 2020, 5:55 p.m. ET

At the beginning of this week, the Eastman Kodak Company handed its chief executive 1.75 million stock options.

It was the type of compensation decision that generally wouldn't attract much notice, except for one thing: The day after the stock options were granted, the White House announced that the company would receive a $765 million federal loan to produce ingredients to make pharmaceuticals in the United States.

The news of the deal caused Kodak's shares to soar more than 1,000 percent. Within 48 hours of the options grants, their value had ballooned, at least on paper, to about $50 million.

The government loan is part of a broader federal effort to increase the country's ability to respond to the coronavirus and future pandemics.

The options grant to Kodak's executive chairman and chief executive officer, Jim Continenza, is the latest example of executives and board members at companies receiving such federal support to benefit from extraordinarily good timing. A number of those companies are involved in the hunt for vaccines and treatments for Covid-19.

Insiders at Vaxart, for example, received stock options shortly before the California biotech company announced in June that its potential coronavirus vaccine was being tested in a program organized by a federal agency, causing its shares to instantly double.

{snip

Around the time that Kodak began talking with the federal government this spring, Kodak insiders began receiving stock options. The pattern was first reported by Non-GAAP Thoughts, a digital newsletter.

On May 20, Kodak handed out 240,000 stock options to board members -- an addition to its usual equity distribution in January.

The May stock options awarded to directors are now worth about $4 million. Those options are eligible to be exercised gradually over the course of this year.

{snip}

Jesse Drucker is an investigative reporter for the Business desk. He previously worked for The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News where he won a pair of awards in 2011 for investigative and explanatory reporting from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for a series on how U.S. multinationals shift profits into tax havens. @JesseDrucker

Ellen Gabler is an investigative reporter for The New York Times. @egabler

https://twitter.com/JesseDrucker

https://twitter.com/egabler

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/business/kodak-ceo-stock-options.html

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Once again, hat tip, Joe.My.God.

Kodak CEO Got Stock Options Day Before Trump Deal
July 31, 2020

https://www.joemygod.com/2020/07/kodak-ceo-got-stock-options-day-before-trump-deal/

"the latest example of executives and board members at companies receiving such federal support to benefit from extraordinarily good timing."

You don't say.

Maybe I could take a course at a community college or something where I could learn how to do that.