PONSSE PLC’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS DECIDES ON AN INCENTIVE SCHEME FOR KEY EMPLOYEES AND A RIGHTS ISSUES RELATING TO THE SCHEME
Ponsse Plc’s Board of Directors has decided to establish a new long-term incentive scheme for the Group’s key employees. The purpose of the scheme which engages key employees in long-term shareholding is to combine the goals of shareholders and key employees in order to increase the company’s value in the long term and to provide them with a competitive bonus scheme based on the acquisition and holding of the company’s shares.
The target group of the 2018 share-based bonus scheme consists of approximately 110 people. Bonuses paid on the basis of the scheme total at most 45,000 shares in Ponsse Plc and a monetary component which corresponds with taxes and tax-like fees arising from shares to participants.
The prerequisite for participating in the scheme is that a key employee acquires the company’s shares up to the number decided on by the Board of Directors from the market by 5 December 2018 or acquires them from the market or through the company’s rights issue. In addition, a key employee must be in a valid employment or official relationship at the time of the payment of the bonus.
In 2018, bonuses from the scheme will be paid partly in the form of the company’s shares and partly in cash. The monetary component covers taxes and tax-like fees arising from the bonuses to key employees. Shares given as bonuses may not be transferred during the restriction period ending on 12 December 2021. If a key employee’s employment or official relationship ends during the restriction period, the key employee will be obligated to return the shares given as a bonus, in full or in part, to the company, without any compensation.
For the payment of bonuses from the share-based bonus scheme in 2018, the Board of Directors decided on a free rights issue for key employees within the target group of the scheme
Through the free rights issue, at most 33,000 shares held by the company and at most 12,000 treasury shares acquired by the company will be transferred, deviating from the pre-emptive subscription rights of shareholders, free of charge to the Group’s key employees who have acquired shares from the market by 5 December 2018. The final number of shares to be transferred will be determined on the basis of the shares acquired by key employees. The free shares will be transferred to key employees no later than on 12 December 2018.
The shares provide their holders with rights to dividends and other rights of shareholders on the day on which they are entered in their recipient’s book-entry account.
Ponsse has a particularly weighty financial reason for deviating from the pre-emptive subscription rights of shareholders, considering the company and the best interests of all of its shareholders, as the purpose of rights issues is to encourage key employees to acquire and hold the company’s shares as part of the 2018 share-based bonus scheme offered to them. The decisions on rights issues are based on the authorisation provided by the Annual General Meeting held on 9 April 2018.
Vieremä, 31 October 2018
PONSSE PLC
Juho Nummela
President and CEO
FURTHER INFORMATION
Juho Nummela, President and CEO, tel. +358 400 495 690
DISTRIBUTION
NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd
Principal media
www.ponsse.com
Ponsse Plc is a company specialising in the sales, manufacture, servicing and technology of cut-to-length method forest machines and is driven by genuine interest in its customers and their business. Ponsse develops and manufactures sustainable and innovative harvesting solutions based on customers’ needs.
The company was established by forest machine entrepreneur Einari Vidgrén in 1970, and it has been a leader in timber harvesting solutions based on the cut-to-length method ever since. Ponsse is headquartered in Vieremä, Finland. The company’s shares are quoted on the NASDAQ OMX Nordic List.