The Perfect Payday
March 26th, 2006 | Published in DIY, NonGov Data
Charles Forelle and James Bandler of the Wall Street Journal - in a rare CAR foray - analyzed stock option grants for CEOs to find that “several companies with wildly improbable option-grant patterns. While this doesn’t prove chicanery, it shows something very odd: Year after year, some companies’ top executives received options on unusually propitious dates.” (Link for subscribers; see a synposis and graphic here). Most of the activity involved curiously-timed back-dating of stock options, allowing executives to buy shares at lower prices.