The BLN CFO Breakfast Brainstorm. ‘Share Options – an insider’s guide for CFOs – from startup to IPO’

A conversation with Eddie Powell (Abcam CFO – 2000 – 2007)

Eddie was the CFO of Abcam for nearly 8 years, from its initial revenue up to its AIM listing and beyond. Prior to this, from 1990-2000, he was CFO for Colt, a £90m turnover, privately owned, international light engineering group. Before this he was with Marconi Instruments, initially as financial controller, later Finance Director. Part of GEC, this was a £100m sales high tech group with subsidiaries in six countries.

Eddie will share his insights and experiences in the implementation and expansion of Abcam’s share option scheme, the questions he faced, and the solutions he developed along the way.

  1. Why grant share options? Is it always appropriate?
  2. How many options to grant in total? How to allocate options between different employees.
  3. How do you price the options
    • EMI vs USOS – potential immediate tax implications for employees.
  4. What if the company is floated on the stock market/sold/other investment rounds?
  5. Explaining to employees – getting the concepts and benefits across.

The BLN Breakfast Brainstorm is a high-level peer-to-peer discussion forum for CFO’s to learn from each other, share best practice and advance the role of the CFO in high growth companies in a relaxed, entertaining and facilitated environment. The event is run under Chatham House Rule.

Attendees: The BLN CFO Breakfast Brainstorms have already included some of the most experienced public and private company CFOs and FDs in the region including CFO/FD’s from Red Gate Software, NXT plc, nCipher, CSR, Alertme, Xaar, Domino, Owlstone, Zeus, Sphere Medical, PriSmaStar, Atlantic Healthcare and 1spatial amongst others.

Supporters: This initiative is supported by BDO and breakfast is provided courtesy of Red Gate Software.

Places are limited and in high demand so a prompt reply is advantageous to secure a place. If you would like to attend, please get in touch.

Please note that by applying we CANNOT guarantee a place, although we do our best to accommodate relevant individuals. Our priority is always to ensure that our guests are relevant to the specific discussion.

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