Yep @EquityInvestor as per Hydra_King he paid GGP £122k for 17.5million shares for under 1p. Then sold them for 9p and made a profit of around 300k. Nice. Maybe he want’s an extension. 
Yes, I realised that he made a massive profit and at the same time increased his number of shares.
We don’t know the circumstances of the individual.
I don’t have any problems with him selling shares and taking profits.
No it isnt. The options outstanding (just like freetrade) are listed in financial statements. They are already priced in
Where are options listed in financial statements? I’ve never been able to find them
Oh I see, sorry I thought you meant it was a line item on the actual statement. Thanks for that.
Putting aside the wider question regarding director remuneration, share options, dilution, etc. I do find it interesting that the CEO decided to sell his shares now at this price. I acknowledge that there could be any number of reasons for this sale (personal tax payments, personal circumstances, inability to sell during closed periods, etc.). However, if the CEO was expecting these shares to shoot up to 15p, 20p or more in the fairly near future, I would have expected him to do what he could to hang on to them and to maximise his return on these options. The CEO should have a pretty good idea of what the business is worth and when the best time will be to buy or sell shares. So, to see him selling shares now does make me wonder whether we have seen the top of this for at least a while.
DYOR, etc.
Matt
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How many shares did he received when he exercised the options, and how many did he sell? Did he sell the whole lot? Did he sell a big chunk?, or did he sell just a small portion?
@Raul, if you read a bit higher up, RollingSkies provided the link. It is this post:
https://community.freetrade.io/t/on-greatland-gold-ggp/14182/185
He sold a tiny portion of his holding. In fact he didnt even really reduce it. He basically bought more shares for nothing and sold them on for a fortune. Perhaps to pay his tax bill or buy a Ferrari who knows. He put 122k into GGP bank account tho.
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First point to note is that I have no idea about directors exercising options so I accept that my analysis could be incorrect. I also do hold shares in GGP at this time.
However I have read the RNS this evening and this is my understanding of it:
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Mr Heddle exercised options in his contract and bought 17.5 million shares at 7p per share. This equates to a cost of £122,500.
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To fund this purchase of shares and cover the associated taxes he sold 4.5 million ordinary shares at 9.25p per share. Providing him with £416,250. The RNS states he had bought those 4.5 million shares originally at 0.1p per share.
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Mr Heddle has now increased his share holdings in GGP to hold 68,750,000 ordinary shares. Which is a holding of 1.9% of the issued share capital of the company.
So as @Rollingskies has already stated Mr Heddle has increased his holding of GGP shares by 13.5 million (sold 4m, bought 17.5m) at a personal cost of zero. He also would have made a substantial amount of money after he had paid his taxes from this deal.
Yes as @ytsruh states this dilutes the shares. But I think your mathematics @ytsruh is incorrect. He added 17.5m new shares, not 4m which actually makes the dilution of shares slightly greater at 0.477%.
However this dilution doesn’t seem unreasonable to me as I expect the share price of this company to increase by a much greater amount than 0.477% over the period I intend to hold it. And from looking at the Company News on LSE he didn’t sell anymore shares in GGP today unless you mean shares in other companies?
Despite the slight dilution of shares I am actually given confidence that the CEO has considerably increased his holding of GGP shares. And unlike @Mat who thinks it’s a worrying sign that he has sold at this level. The RNS also states he still has 46m more options at various strike prices. So unless he starts exercising his options and selling them I am happy that the CEO appears to be strengthening his position in the company by taking options to purchase shares and increase his position. We also don’t know what the terms or strike price of the options are. Or as stated by others what the personal financial and tax situation of Mr Heddle is.
I don’t mean to be writing this as a cheerleader of GGP in an attempt to keep positive investor sentiment with the company. However with some of the previous posts stating Mr Heddles actions are bad management or that he is starting to take his money because the share price has reached it’s peak. I wanted to check from the RNS and not message board posts to see if I should continue to hold my position as planned or get out with my profit now.
I don’t believe that today’s actions are a worrying sign and I will continue to hold.
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@ytsruh, there certainly is some dilution… But have you looked at the amount?
According to the image uploaded by @Rollingskies, as of June 2019 there were 3.323 billion existing shares. In addition there were 213.5 million unerxercised share options. This means that even if all the options were exercised at once the dilution would be of 6.4% which comes from dividing the share options (213.5 million) by the total shares (3323million - to use the same units) and multiplying by 100.
In the grand scheme of things and considering that explorer miner have 2 typical options, either they go big and make lots of money or they become near insolvent, a 6.4% dilution is insignificant 
.
Obviously what I would definitely not want to see is the total number of cheap options for management being increased, but I do not think that will happen, at least not in this stage of development. If they want to issue more shares or share rights I would hope that any news ones would be at a price more similar to the market one so that the company would gain significant capital to increase the value to shareholders 
.
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It is the way business works. Almost every company gives managers incentives to work hard and be loyal. Alternatively the business could just pay out millions and there would be a lot less incentive to work hard and be loyal.
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@ytsruh you are probably right then, I did not look at historic rights.
Nonetheless, mining companies tend to have to go to the market several times and issue shares to raise capital in order to progress to different stages, that is why I said that I think it is unlikely that we will be diluted further than the existing options within this stage of development.
Also, I believe most shareholders are expecting the company to be bought out (potentially by Newcrest) at a significant premium once the stage is finished and a reasonable valuation is provided based on a relatively detailed feasibility report.
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Impartial observer and newbie here. If one holds GGP and Newcrest does indeed buy them out, what happens to the GGP shareholders?
I’m genuinely enjoying the education I’m receiving about
company dilution and directors share options that I’m receiving from this current debate. I’m a public sector worker and inexperienced small time investor.
With regards to the previous two posts from @ytsruh. I am one such person that is happy with small dilutions of my material ownership of the company providing that share price increases over time. I have no issues with a CEO receiving bonuses in this way if they have negotiated in their contract as such and the company is performing well. The levels I invest at are never really about ownership of the company, just trying to make a percentage gain on my money off the back of the company. I also agree that my money in GGP is as much of a gamble as it is an investment. However I do feel there is value in what GGP are doing with a potential to provide profit for myself. So like every other share holding I have had on Freetrade, because I believe the company is working to make more money ultimately, I am giving them a portion of my money that I’m willing to risk for profit.
However I wasn’t aware of the increased amounts of share options granted. 239m outstanding shares in 2009 compared to 3.67b in 2020 doesn’t fill me with confidence that management are balancing company performance and their own remuneration appropriately. To be honest, with my inexperience of such matters, I didn’t know there would be further opportunity to grant more share options as ongoing remuneration but I can see how it makes sense as a performance bonus.
If a shareholder from 2009 has had their share holding diluted by 50% as you say. Is their profit to this point actually 50% less than it should be? And is continual further share dilution holding price back?
Also I don’t know anything about the Sirius minerals collapse. Was the collapse solely due to mismanagement? What similarities are there with GGP?
But without looking at the share price you’ve totally skewed that statistic. In 2009 the share price was 0.4p. So less than half of 1p. It is is now 9p. So if you had £1000 in 2009 you would have purchased 250k shares. That would be worth £22,500. That’s 2,250% growth. Given that this loss making mining company relies exclusively for any future bonanza on the skill of management why would you complain at 2250% growth?
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All very informative. Thanks!
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Although Sirius was in the same industrial sector ie mining, I’m not sure that a comparison with GGP is that relevant here. Sirius ran out of cash during the building of the infrastructure (which with the beauty of hindsight was always a major risk ie they failed to find suitable financing), GGP is an explorer rather than proposing to develop and run the mine.
Even if GGP developed and ran the mine the infrastructure is not as challenging as the 20+km tunnel under the N Yorkshire Moors NP that Sirius needed.
So while investors should exercise due caution, equally we have to be careful we don’t cherry pick comparisons.
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