Net onderstaande toelichting gevonden in een bericht van Viper One (dd. 7 november 2016). Dit bevestigd mijn vermoeden dat er nog een stevige kostenpost voor PSU zit aan te komen.
Hi Kris,
With respect to AMG’s PSU plan – this is a companywide long-term incentive plan. As you noted below from the annual reports, PSU awards are made annually to a number of AMG employees and vest 3 years later, provided a number of very stringent performance targets are met – i.e. over the 3-year vesting period, AMG must out-perform its peers in terms of 3-year average ROCE and relative Total Shareholder Return (TSR). If these performance targets are not met in the 3-year period, there is no pay-out.
As you will have noted in recent annual reports, in recent years (prior to 2016), the PSU awards have not resulted in any compensation payouts to employees as AMG’s has not out-performed the peer group as described above. However, due to AMG’s exceptional share price performance in the last 18 months and strong financial performance, the PSU awards from 2014, 2015 and 2016 (which all vest 3 years later in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively) could now potentially pay-out to the employees in the scheme (depending on how AMG and our peers perform in the coming months/years) – hence the need to make the appropriate accruals.
Under IFRS rules, the accruals associated with PSU plans such as the AMG plans increase as the share price increases. In addition, if the share price moves substantially during a particular period, there is also an element of ‘catch-up’ to adjust the previously accrued expense for the current expected liability at the end of the plan.
As a result, AMG’s PSU expense in Q2 16 and Q3 16 was adversely impacted by these ‘catch-up’ accruals due to the positive movement in the share price. Unless AMG’s share price once again increases very substantially, we will not see the same level of expense related to the PSU plans (as there would be no need for these ‘catch-up’ accruals).
From a strategic growth perspective, AMG’s key priority is our Lithium project. We continue to evaluate other potential growth opportunities and will up-date the market in due course.
Best regards,
Steve