JSW Steel Employees Trust, which is executing the employees stock option of the Group, has sold about 2.42 lakh shares of JSW Steel worth ₹17 crore. The sale was as per SEBI norms that stipulate trusts to revalue the holding and offload the unsubscribed shares every year.

The sale was executed between June 25 and 30. Dilip Pattanayak, President of Human Resources, JSW Group, said the sale of shares was partly due to unsubscribed ESOPs offered to employees in 2019 due to their resignation before the vesting period. This apart, some of the eligible employees requested the Trust to sell shares worth their payment obligation to subscribe for the ESOP and transfer the remaining shares to their demat account, he added.

In 2019, JSW Steel through the employees Trust facilitated share purchase of about ₹420 crore from the secondary market as part of its voluntary ESOP – ‘Samruddhi Plan 2019’ – for 12,000 staff.

As part of the appraisal, the company allotted 1,000-2,000 shares at ₹232 a piece to employees with a lock-in of two years. It also arranged a loan of ₹2.32-4.64 lakh for employees to fund the share purchase and borne 75 per cent of interest cost of the loan.

The lock-in period of the shares allotted to employees will come to end in September. An employee who has been allotted 1,000 shares can pay about ₹13,000 for 25 per cent of the interest cost to release the locked-in shares. If off-loaded in the market, they can make a profit of about ₹5 lakh since the shares are trading at about ₹738-750 in last few weeks.

The share sale is nothing to do with the ₹1,050 crore ESOP announced by steel and energy businesses this year. The company has not yet started the purchase of shares, said Pattanayak.

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