I worked at this company for 4 years and accumulated ISOs. I vested almost all of them and I was unfortunately let go a few months ago.
Today, the company is not doing well having let go approximately 25% of its workforce in less than a year and being very tight on cash. CEO apparently found some investors end of 2022 to borrow money from (if the company does not pay the lender back then the lender gets share as collateral).
The exercise price for my ISO is around 60 cents per share. The HR head told me that the share value was around $4 in 2021 which was the latest round of fundraising. If I exercise, she said they cannot guarantee me to find a buyer even though they will still help me to find one.
As the expiry date for my ISOs is in a couple of days, she offers me to delay the expiry date for these ISOs by 3 months as they are apparently raising more fundings now. Obviously, the share price might be only worth $2 or whatever, but I would still lock in a profit of 200%. They might also lie to me and tell me the share price is $1 and underpay me who knows.
This company management has a culture of using tricks to not pay vendors or employees (e.g. my colleagues in certain regions were paid two months late, some of our vendors 6 months late. They tried not to pay us our remaining days off when we got let go etc)
In other words, I am afraid they might be trying to screw me over with these ISO as well. It's not a lot of money ($15k at best) but I want to claim what's due to me.
Do you think they might try to trick me by make me buy the ISOs, get my cash and then I will be unable to resell the shares? Maybe they would tell me a fair market value much lower than the actual value to underpay me?
Today, the company is not doing well having let go approximately 25% of its workforce in less than a year and being very tight on cash. CEO apparently found some investors end of 2022 to borrow money from (if the company does not pay the lender back then the lender gets share as collateral).
The exercise price for my ISO is around 60 cents per share. The HR head told me that the share value was around $4 in 2021 which was the latest round of fundraising. If I exercise, she said they cannot guarantee me to find a buyer even though they will still help me to find one.
As the expiry date for my ISOs is in a couple of days, she offers me to delay the expiry date for these ISOs by 3 months as they are apparently raising more fundings now. Obviously, the share price might be only worth $2 or whatever, but I would still lock in a profit of 200%. They might also lie to me and tell me the share price is $1 and underpay me who knows.
This company management has a culture of using tricks to not pay vendors or employees (e.g. my colleagues in certain regions were paid two months late, some of our vendors 6 months late. They tried not to pay us our remaining days off when we got let go etc)
In other words, I am afraid they might be trying to screw me over with these ISO as well. It's not a lot of money ($15k at best) but I want to claim what's due to me.
Do you think they might try to trick me by make me buy the ISOs, get my cash and then I will be unable to resell the shares? Maybe they would tell me a fair market value much lower than the actual value to underpay me?
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