Metaplanet cuts executive reward pool by 41%, extinguishes $220 million in value
Metaplanet has reduced its executive stock acquisition reward pool by 41% following investor pressure regarding share dilution. The company also announced it will design a new compensation plan with external advisers after withdrawing previous warrant transfer schemes.
Why it matters
This move highlights the tension between aggressive corporate bitcoin-buying strategies and shareholder concerns over management compensation and equity dilution.
The Tokyo-based company reduced the total pool of potential shares in the Series 10 Stock Acquisition Rights plan by 41% to 188.2 million, according to filings published on Friday . The move follows an adjustment in August that cut the pool to about 320 million shares.
When initiated in 2022, the plan established a reward pool of 20% of Metaplanet's fully diluted share capital rather than granting executives a fixed number of shares. Investors who flocked to the company after 2024, when it adopted a strategy of selling shares to buy bitcoin, objected to the structure, saying it diluted their holdings while boosting management’s.
“We never intended to incentivise non-accretive or modestly accretive dilution," CEO Simon Gerovich said in a post on X. Friday’s move "extinguishes over $220 million of warrant value," which is the scale of what the floating mechanism produced management at shareholders’ expense.
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