Note 31 Publicis Groupe SA stock option and free share plans
Two free share plans were created during 2020, with the following features:
Long-Term Incentive Plan known as the “Sapient 2020 Plan” (May 2020)
The plan put in place for the exclusive benefit of Publicis Sapient executives and employees is made up of two tranches:
- the first tranche is conditional only upon continued employment and gives rise to the delivery of one-fourth of the shares awarded on the dates of the first four anniversaries of the plan (i.e. in May 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024);
- in addition to the condition of continued employment, the second tranche is conditional upon performance criteria, and the total number of shares delivered shall depend on the level of targets achieved for 2020, 2021 and 2022. Delivery will take place at the end of a three-year period, in May 2023.
Long-Term Incentive Plan known as the “LTI Epsilon 2020 Plan” (July 2020)
The plan set up for the exclusive benefit of Publicis Epsilon executives and employees is composed of three tranches subject to a presence condition for 20% and performance conditions for 80% and distributed as follows:
- a first tranche awarded by the Management Board in July 2020, subject to targets set for 2020, deliverable in March 2021;
- a second tranche that will actually be awarded by the Management Board in March 2021, subject to targets set for 2021, and deliverable in March 2022;
- a third tranche that will actually be awarded by the Management Board in March 2022, subject to targets set for 2022 and deliverable in March 2023.
In addition, the performance of the following plans was assessed in March 2020:
- LTI 2019: the performance targets set for 2019 were 50% achieved;
- Sapient 2017, 2018 and 2019 plans: the performance targets set for 2019 were 50% achieved;
- Epsilon 2019-2021 replacement plans: the performance targets set for 2019 were 66.5% achieved.
Lastly, in December 2020, the Management Board decided to replace the 2019 Special Retention Plan with a new LTIP program from 2021. As a result, the shares to be delivered linked to the 2020 performance have been canceled.
