How to issue equity grants out of an employee benefit trust (EBT)

Recording options, share grants and warrants that are issued out of an EBT

You can issue equity awards that are coming from issued shares, for example from an employee benefit trust (EBT). 

This article covers:

• Recording and issuing shares to an EBT
• Create an equity plan 
• Issuing equity from an EBT
• Viewing the EBT in the cap table

Recording and issuing shares to an EBT

The EBT will need to have shares issued to them and be on the cap table.

To do this click on the 'Shares' page and click on the green 'Register Offline Share Issuance'

Then you select a trust that is already registered on Capdesk or click the green 'Or Add a New Buyer instead'.

To record an EBT,  you will need to select 'Trust' under the stakeholder type, enter the name of the trust, choose a country of incorporation, enter a registration number and a contact email. After you've entered this information, click 'Next'.

After this, you will need to enter the issuance details including the share class, date of issuance, quantity and price paid per share.

Click 'Save as Draft' or 'Publish and Notify Stakeholder' (if applicable).

The EBT will appear on the cap table.

Create an equity plan

Next you will need to record the equity plan, to do this click on the relevant equity awards page, then 'Plans' and the green 'Add Plan' button.

Once you are on this page, you will need to enter the details of the plan.

For the plan to be drawn from the EBT, you will need to select 'Issued' under 'Use Shares...' and then select the EBT under 'Shareholder'.

Enter details of the plan (name of the plan, share class, jurisdiction and type) then click on "Save".

Issuing equity from an EBT

You will be able to grant equity awards from the EBT.

Viewing the EBT in the cap table

The number of equity awards held by the EBT on the cap table will decrease by the amount granted. In the screenshot below you can see a deduction of 350 options.

If the equity award is an option grant, and you record an exercise then the number of options for 'Option Plan Outstanding' will decrease by the amount exercised, in the screenshot below all 350 options had been exercised. You may also notice that the "A Ordinary shares" have decreased as they no longer hold the shares due to the exercise and vice versa.