What's new?

Companies now can decide how they want their shares to be reallocated within the vesting schedules when stock splits are performed. Two vesting strategies can be selected now:

Option 1: Reapply templates

When companies choose the reapply templates option, Carta will automatically reapply the template for all securities with template vesting schedules upon performing the split. This means that Carta will re-calculate the vesting schedules attached to securities, considering the new total quantity. This can change how the vesting is distributed among the tranches since it will be an entirely new vesting schedule.

For example, a 10 shares grant that time vests with tranches of 2 and 3 shares will, after a 1:10 split, have tranches of 25 shares each if the company chooses this option.

Option 2: Apply stock split ratio to all tranches 

When companies choose to apply the stock split ratio to all tranches, Carta will multiply the stock split ratio by each tranche. In case the shares remaining in a tranche are fractional, the platform will then round down to the nearest integer. This results in fewer differences in the schedule from the pre-split to the post-split security. If a security is tied to a template vesting schedule, Carta will need to update it to a custom schedule to make this change. Custom vesting schedules cannot be reapplied later, as they are not part of any templates.

If companies choose this option, a 10 shares grant that time vests with tranches of 2 and 3 shares, after a 1:10 split, will have tranches of 20 and 30 shares each if this option is chosen.

Why is this important?

Different companies need their post-split vesting schedules to be represented differently. With this change, Carta becomes more flexible to adjust to different vesting scenarios. Having more vesting accommodation strategies also means less time dedicated to manual adjustments after a stock split is performed.

How can I learn more about this?

You can find a detailed explanation of the new vesting strategies with vesting schedule examples in this support article.