SiliconBeat

For those of you thinking the IPO market is going to come roaring back this year, think again.

I just saw the post from Techcrunch yesterday that Yelp was on the verge of taking a $50 million investment from Elevation Partners. This comes after the failed acquisition talks with Google. Here’s what’s interesting:

“The size of the round is in the $50 million range, but includes both a primary investment component as well as a secondary offering for long time employees. These deals are now being referred to as ‘DST deals,’ since DST first invested in Facebook in May 2009 at a $10 billion valuation and later funded employee buyouts at a $6.5 billion valuation. They did a similar deal with Zynga.”

In other words, part of the investment will allow long-time employees to cash out options. Same deal with Facebook and Zynga. But why? Read the rest of this entry »

A day after repricing underwater options held by a couple hundred of its employees, Integrated Silicon Solutions filed details Tuesday of a proposed settlement of a lawsuit against the company and some of its current and past executives and members of its board over allegations of stock option backdating.

Although the defendants in the matter — including the company’s chief executive, Jimmy Lee — deny “each and every allegation” made in the complaint, Read the rest of this entry »

Umang Gupta, the chief executive of Keynote Systems, had offered to give back an option grant good for 400,000 shares as an incentive to convince shareholders to approve a proposal to extend the company’s 1999 stock incentive plan by two years, gave back even more, according to an SEC filing today.

The measure had failed to attract enough “yes” votes Read the rest of this entry »

Add eBay to the list of  technology company seeking to rescue its employees underwater options. Last week, the online auctioneer’s board of directors approved putting two proposals before shareholders at the company’s annual meeting on April 29 that would facilitate the exchange of underwater options for a smaller number of restricted shares  that will retain value as long as eBay’s stock price does.

“Like many companies, we have experienced a significant decline Read the rest of this entry »

Keynote Systems counted the votes on its proposal seeking shareholder approval to extend its 1999 stock incentive plan at its annual meeting today, and decided it needed more time to, presumably,  solicit additional support for the measure, according to a regulatory filing.

“As of February 27, approximately 12 million of the approximately 14.1 million outstanding shares have been voted, with approximately 48.3% of votes cast in favor of extending the Plan and approximately 51.7% against.”

The apparent rejection of the measure came despite Read the rest of this entry »

“Nektar”, the San Carlos drug developer, “is exceptionally well-positioned as we enter 2009,” said the company’s chief executive, Howard Robin, in an earnings release Tuesday.

Also well positioned is Robin himself, who the day before was given Read the rest of this entry »

Google offered its employees the chance to exchange their underwater options (the company estimated that 85 percent of its employees hold at least some options where the current strike price is higher than where its shares are now trading, rendering them worthless at the moment), according to Read the rest of this entry »

Marvell Technology has offered to exchange options held by its employees with an exercise price of $12 or higher for a pro-rated number of shares of restricted stock. The exchange period, which began Tuesday, ends Jan. 23.

The exchange rate for options priced from $12 to $18 will be one restricted stock unit for every Read the rest of this entry »

Shutterfly, the Redwood City Internet-based digital photo sharing site, boosted the salary of its chief executive, Jeffrey Housenbold, by nearly two-thirds next year to $485,000 from the $300,000 salary he got in 2008, according to a filing the company made Monday with the SEC. That comes on the heels of a 9 percent salary increase he got last year. He’ll also get 10 percent of his new salary as a guaranteed minimum bonus to his cash compensation.

The company also served up a helping of Read the rest of this entry »

Lam Research’s chief executive, Stephen Newberry, finally became an outright owner of his company’s stock last month when he exercised an option to buy 5,250 shares of the company for $11.66 each, or $61,215. The shares were the last left in an option granted to him 10 years ago that were to expire Thursday.

Newberry hasn’t owned any of his company’s stock for at least Read the rest of this entry »