How to handle NQ employee stock options when company ownership changes?

mikshann

I have vested NQ options from grants that took place over 16 years. Three years ago, my company, Praxair Inc merged with Linde the new company kept the Linde name. Since then, the value of the remaining options have been accurately reflected even though they still show up as Praxair options. As of two days ago, the total value of the remaining options show zero. I suspect that is because they are listed as Praxair and that company no longer exists - although I'm not sure it took so long for that to happen.
How can I remedy this? Seems like a lot of work to have to go back, delete and re-create the original grants using the new company name. Any other "options"??

Chris_QPW

This is only a swag, but I have a feeling that you can go to the security list and change the symbol, and it should update with the correct price.  If the problem is the actual CUSIP ID, I'm not sure how that can be changed, and hopefully someone with better knowledge in that area will comment on how to do it.

mikshann

Thanks Chris_QPW for the feedback. I tried that initially but found that I could only update the option name - not the symbol or the name of the underlying stock. In the end, I just went ahead and deleted the original grants and re-created grants with the new company name. Not as time consuming as I thought it would be. Might be a more efficient way to do it but I couldn't see how.

Chris_QPW

Yeah I was wondering about that.  Given that they automatically create the " - options" security they are "restricted" in what you can do with them.  I'm glad it wasn't too much trouble to recreate them.