What to Expect and How to Effectively Plan for Early Lock-Up Releases (ELR)
Although early lock-up releases have been around for several years, they have become prevalent with IPOs over the past year and are expected to remain a commonly used tool. Learn from industry veterans about the twists, turns, and tribulations involved with planning, administering, and executing early lock-up releases ranging from first-trading-day releases to conditional releases based on timing, earnings releases, and/or share price(s).
Moderator:
Josh McGinn
Senior Vice President, AST Financial
Josh has more than 35 years of industry experience and is currently managing IPOs, Direct Listings, exchanges and other shareholder services for corporate issuers. Before joining AST in April 2012, Josh was with Computershare and its predecessors BNYMellon and EquiServe. He is a board member of the San Francisco chapter of NASPP, and is also a current board member of the San Francisco Chapter of NIRI. He has authored materials for the NCEO and enjoys thought leadership with speaking on industry trends and regulatory changes while always looking to achieve the greatest operating and cost efficiencies.
Panelists:
Michael Whalen
Principal, Whalen LLP
Mike’s law firm, Whalen LLP, assists companies and their pre-IPO shareholders with the legal and procedural steps required to put shareholders in a position to sell their shares after a company has gone public. Mike has worked on over 300 IPOs, direct listings, early lock-up releases, and lock-up expirations, including engagements with Zoom, Uber, Hertz, Coinbase, Allbirds, Robinhood, Roblox, Dropbox, DocuSign, DraftKings, and many others. Mike is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was previously a partner of O’Melveny & Myers.
Alicia Bond
Direct, Stock Administration, HashiCorp
Alicia has been working in the equity compensation space for 14 years and has been a CEP for 10. She has in depth experience in the pre-IPO, IPO, and Post-IPO equity life cycle. She is currently the Director, Stock Administration at HashiCorp and previously worked at Block, Inc. (Square, Inc.), Stock and Options Solutions, and Deem, Inc. (Rearden Commerce).
Armina Behrouzi, CEP, CECP
Founder & Principal, Wailea Consulting
Armina is a HR professional with 17 years of total rewards and equity experience. She consults to companies at the full spectrum of the business cycle, from private through IPO to maturity. Armina specializes in IPO preparation, helping companies transition to public company compensation programs. Clients have included Palo Alto Networks, Pinterest, Remitly, Rubrik, Okta and Twilio. Prior to consulting, she held in-house head of compensation, executive compensation, stock administration and equity accounting roles including at VMware and Williams Sonoma.