Harel Investments has published an outline for the distribution of approximately 8.5 million options to the company's employees

The insurance company Harel Investments has published an outline for the distribution of approximately 8.5 million options to the company's employees. This is a 3.7% share of the company in full dilution, amounting to NIS 284 million (and a benefit value of NIS 55 million). According to the details in the company's report, it seems that Harel was relatively generous with the company's middle class, but it is also clear that they do not see options as a way to reward and incentivize the junior level. Alternatively they do believe it but no worthy employees have been found at this level - it is much much less likely.
The exercise price of the shares is determined according to the price on the day of the decision on the outline, is NIS 33.4 per share. Any price in the market above this price will constitute a benefit for the employees - which is the real essence of the distribution of options. The options have three maturity periods: the first two years from the date of allotment, the second another year thereafter, and the third another year thereafter - a total of full exercise within 4 years of their allotment.
CEO Nir Cohen will receive a package of 180,000 options, followed by 3 executives and senior executives will receive 350,000 options (an average of about 117,000 each). Senior executives, "the company defines. It may be an intermediate tier, but even if everyone from the junior tier is a crumb of crumbs.
After 200 workers were laid off in the year of the outbreak of the corona, in 2020, Harel ended it with a workforce (including controlled companies) of about 4,600 people. The 154 employees we mentioned above are less than 4% of the total employees in the company.
This is not to say that in Harel this level is not necessarily rewarded in other ways - bonuses, improved working conditions, wage increases and so on. What they do understand is that options are probably not a common way of rewarding junior employees. Depending on the rise of the stock with the development of the company's business, often an upstream option (also depending on when it is exercised) can be worth much more than a salary increase, temporary or permanent.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about wage celebrations in high-tech in the shadow of the competition for skilled workers, mainly developers. The salaries of some of them are very high even before we talk about options at all, and with companies that are not recognized and are still in growth stages - this is under the auspices of their recruitments in the private market and the money that is pouring over them. Although Harel is from the insurance field and is not a high-tech company, it is several times larger than a start-up, stable, mature and makes large sums. Its approach to options and who is entitled to the contractor only illustrates another difference between the high-tech industry - and everything else.