Companies

Safaricom top workers get Sh363m free shares

bob

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore during the release of the telco’s full year results in May. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NMG

Employees of telecommunications firm Safaricom #ticker:SCOM, including the company’s executives, have taken 13.7 million shares of the telco worth Sh363 million for free after either matching or beating their performance targets.

The high-performing employees were alloted the shares in the year ended March after waiting for three years, as per the company’s annual report released last week.

The telco’s top performers had one of their biggest bonanzas in the previous year when they cashed out 30.4 million shares with a current market value of Sh805.6 million based on the firm’s new record stock price of Sh26.5 in yesterday’s trading.

Safaricom disclosed details of the share-based compensation scheme in its latest annual report.

“Additionally, 13.7 million shares historically valued at Sh193.2 million … vested and were exercised by eligible staff,” the firm says in the report.

The company has been running the share grant scheme since 2011, buying shares from the open market and allotting them to staff based on their previous year’s performance ratings.

READ: Collymore raises stake with 300,000 shares purchase