Share incentive plan?

[Hairybaker]

I got some shares a few years ago when the company I work for floated. The scheme ends in august so we apparently get gifted the shares. Does anyone know how quickly you get given them and how you go about selling them?!

Are they currently visible to you via an online platform? Ours are and I can sell via that platform (subject to dealing fees) a couple of weeks after they vest. Keep an eye on the tax - we’re always charged the emergency rate of 45% on vesting shares (although the overpaid tax does eventually balance out through payroll). It does mean that more shares than are necessary are withheld to pay the tax, and you never quite get as many as you expect.

If they are a govt approved share incentive plan (SIP - free shares held in an employee trust, which it sounds like they are as typically given to employees on a float up to £3600 worth) then there won’t be any tax to pay assuming you have held them for the full five years. If you’ve only had them the 3 years then there might be some tax to pay.

Your company will need to let you know the maturity timetable and dates etc. In our company, we usually send out details about a month before vesting. For our SIP, we ran them through payroll so employees had to put their requests in and then wait until the next payday to get them. For other schemes such as our SAYE scheme we have weekly batches and the money then would be in your account 3 days after the sale date.