We are just now starting to get ready for the fall compensation committee meetings cycle for calendar-year companies. If your company’s stock price has been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, now is a good time to look at your equity plans. You need to see how many shares are available and figure out how long those shares are likely to last given both current stock prices and potential changes in stock prices that might affect the size of your future annual equity grants.
I have already worked with several companies that undertook this exercise. Several companies have determined they have just enough shares to make it until their 2022 annual meeting, so they will continue on as normal until then. For others, they realized they might not have enough shares available after their 2021 annual grant, so they have started the process of going back to shareholders for approval of additional shares at their 2021 annual meetings.
It is better to test the waters on this before you get swamped with year-end duties. If you find you may need more shares after your 2021 annual grants, you can then calmly start the process for going to shareholders in 2021 for approval of more shares.