Saietta Group Plc (LON:SED), the AIM-listed multi-national business which designs, engineers and manufactures complete electric drivetrain (eDrive) systems for electric vehicles, has today announced the grant of new options, and cancellation of existing options, in order to appropriately incentivise key employees in the Company’s next stages of growth.
On 29 June 2021, the Board of Directors of Saietta adopted the Saietta Group plc Long Term Incentive Plan 2021 (the “LTIP“) and granted options to certain employees. Save for an award to Tony Gott, as announced in August 2022, no awards to key employees have been made under the LTIP since the initial tranche of awards were granted in 2021.
Saietta Group’s Remuneration Committee has determined that awards under the LTIP should be made available to a wider pool of key employees who have joined the business after 29 June 2021.
The Remuneration Committee also believe that the performance conditions attaching to the options granted in 2021 have not been met and are unlikely to be and are therefore failing to provide a long term incentive to retain key senior team members which the Company believes is of paramount importance to deliver long term shareholder value. Accordingly, certain options granted in 2021 are to be surrendered and replaced by a new tranche of options with updated performance criteria.
The following actions have been taken today:
1. new awards under the LTIP have been granted (“2023 Awards“) to key employees who have joined the Company since June 2021 for an aggregate of up to 1,600,000 ordinary shares of £0.0011 each;
2. awards granted in 2021 under the LTIP, to acquire in aggregate up to 1,130,000 Ordinary Shares, have been surrendered and replaced by 2023 Awards with updated performance criteria, over in aggregate 1,850,000 Ordinary Shares; and
3. the rules of the LTIP have been amended to, among other things, alter the existing leaver provisions. Under the amended rules of the LTIP, awards may only be retained and exercised in certain “good leaver” scenarios when the performance conditions attaching to the relevant award have been satisfied and any holding period has expired.
The awards granted in 2021 that have been surrendered, and the 2023 Awards granted to PDMRs are detailed in the table below:
| Name | Position | Number of Ordinary Shares under surrendered 2021 awards | Number of Ordinary Shares subject to 2023 Awards | Exercise Price of the 2023 Awards |
| Steven Harrison | Chief Financial Officer | 600,000 | 600,000 | £0.01 |
| Graham Lenden | Chief of Staff | 250,000 | 400,000 | £0.01 |
| Christopher Lines | Head of R&D | 250,000 | 300,000 | £0.01 |
The 2023 Awards will vest and be capable of exercise in two tranches upon the satisfaction of certain performance conditions to be tested on 31 March 2024 and 31 March 2025. Upon vesting, 50% of the vested Ordinary Shares under the 2023 Awards shall be subject to a 12 month holding period and the other 50% of the vested Ordinary Shares shall be subject to a 24 month holding period. Except in certain circumstances as set out in the rules of the LTIP, the 2023 Awards may only be exercised after the expiration of the relevant holding periods.
In the event of a change of control, the 2023 Awards shall be exercisable to the extent vested upon prior satisfaction of the relevant performance conditions provided that, if the price per share paid in connection with such change of control exceeds the share price target set out in the 2023 Award agreements, the awards shall be capable of exercise in full.
Company Share Option Plan
Saietta also announces that a Company Share Option Plan was adopted on 31 May 2023 for the purpose of granting tax-advantaged options to Saietta’s wider workforce over a total of 320,019 Shares (the “CSOP Options“), and which is currently spread between 84 employees (average of 3,810 per employee). The Remuneration Committee does not intend to grant CSOP Options to employees that have been granted LTIP instead. No CSOP Options have been granted to PDMRs.
The vesting period of the CSOP Options is three years from the date of grant. Except in the event of a change of control of Saietta and in certain ‘good leaver’ scenarios, no CSOP Options may be exercised prior to the expiry of the vesting period. Ordinary Shares acquired on exercise of the CSOP Options shall be subject to a holding period of six months, during which time they cannot be sold, except in certain circumstances including, but not limited to, the sale of Ordinary Shares to cover the exercise price payable upon exercise of the CSOP Options. No performance conditions attach to the exercise of the CSOP Options.
The total number of Ordinary Shares that may be acquired pursuant to awards and options which have been granted under the LTIP and CSOP to date is 6,490,019, representing approximately 6.31% of Saietta’s current issued share capital. The aggregate number of Ordinary Shares that may be used to satisfy all options granted under the LTIP and the CSOP will not exceed 10% of the issued share capital of Saietta.
Variation of options held by Tony Gott
As noted above, it was announced on 4 August 2022 that, as part of Tony Gott’s move to Executive Chairman, he received options over 3,000,000 Ordinary Shares under the LTIP.
As noted in the Company’s announcement on 18 April 2023, given Mr Gott’s further appointment as Interim CEO, the Remuneration Committee agreed to put in place an incentive policy that was fully aligned with his short-term objectives as the Interim CEO. Accordingly, in respect of options granted to Tony Gott on 4 August 2022, the period during which the performance conditions must be satisfied has been reduced for options over 2,000,000 Ordinary Shares, and will now end on 1 April 2024 as opposed to 31 March 2025.
Devyani Vaishampayan, Independent Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee commented:
“As a growth focused business, we are pleased we can recognise the commitment of our skilled and valuable employees through a longer-term employee proposition. Having the highest calibre employees and having them appropriately incentivised is absolutely fundamental in maximising shareholder value in our very competitive industry”.
