Issue stock options

There are 3 steps to issue stock options digitally on LTSE Equity.

1. Prepare to issue

Assign signatory

The equity awards signatory e-signs the stock options documents on behalf of your company.

To Assign a signatory, go to Company > Company Information, click on Edit in the Signatories section, then assign a team member as the equity award signatory. The equity awards signatory can be the same as or different than the company signatory.

Learn more

Set up document set

Since most of your stock option grants have the same documents, setting up a document set template makes it easier to apply consistent documents to multiple securities.

  • Stock Plan
  • Notice of Stock Option Agreement
  • Exercise Agreement

Alternatively, you can attach individual documents when you draft your securities.

Add stakeholder emails

Stakeholders use their emails to e-sign, accept their securities, and track their holdings over time. For e-sign, we use email as one of the ways to identify a unique signer, so you know the person that signed and accepted a security is who they say they are.

To add stakeholder emails, go to Stakeholders, click on a stakeholder name, go to the Profile tab, click Edit, then add a valid email. You can also add and verify emails for multiple stakeholders in step 3 below, before issuance notifications are sent to the stakeholders.

Get board consent

Currently only the company signatory and the stakeholder e-sign and accept the securities you issue on LTSE Equity. You need to get board consent ahead of time through your normal board process. We're working on automating board workflows for you too, stay tuned.

2. Draft stock options

Before securities are issued and sent for signatures, you add them to your account as drafts first so you have a chance to review the data. You can also create multiple drafts and issue them in bulk. Draft securities aren't on your official company security ledger yet, so they are not counted against fully diluted shares and aren't included in reports.

When you import securities in bulk using our spreadsheet template, your securities also show up as drafts first. You can issue them in bulk or mark them as issued later.

To draft stock options, go to Ownership > Plans and Equity Awards, then click Draft options. Here you can attach the document set you created earlier.

3. Issue stock options

To issue stock options, on the same Plans and Equity Awards view, in the Drafts section, click on Issue all, or click on a draft security row in the table then click Issue. You can double check the totals and the stakeholder emails before the securities are sent for e-sign.

Next: e-sign and acceptance

After issuing your securities, your equity awards signatory will be asked to sign via email, then your stakeholders will be asked to sign and accept via email. Once everyone signs and accepts, we will email you to confirm that the whole issuance process is complete.

Issue outside of LTSE Equity

If you already issued your options, say with pen and paper or with another e-sign service like HelloSign, you can mark your draft securities as issued. This skips the signatory e-sign and stakeholder acceptance steps. You do not need to enter your stakeholder's email and no notifications will be sent to your stakeholder.

To mark a security as issued, go to Ownership > Plans and Equity Awards, in the Drafts section, click on a draft security row in the table, then click Mark as issued.

Signing multiple option grants at once

Once you have multiple options drafted, select "Issue all".

Once you do, you'll notice a notification pop-up in your To-Do List.

Go to the To-Do List and you will see a button in the top right corner labeled "Sign All". Select.

You can sign all options at once.