U.S. multinational companies are no longer granting as many stock options to their international executives as they do to their U.S. executives, according to a Towers Perrin study to be released Monday. The 75 large-cap multinational companies surveyed are restricting option award sizes to reflect local market practices in other countries.
Forty percent of companies now differentiate long-term incentive awards to executives by geography, compared with 5% last year. "This means that previously, U.S. companies had paid significantly higher than local market standards, which is an approach less viable in the current environment now that stock options will need to be expensed and dilution is a greater concern to shareholders," according to a statement from Towers Perrin.
