Wednesday, August 27, 2008

ValueClick To Buy Back Options

Westlake Village-based ValueClick said Tuesday in a filing with the SEC, that it is looking to buy back out-of-money stock options from its employees. The firm said that it would purchase up to 4.9 million stock options, with exercise prices ranging from $25.66 to $29.73 per share, issued by the company to employees, officers, and directors in 2007. No reason for the buyback was given, but the firm was last trading around $12.95 per share on the NASDAQ this morning--a significant discount to the options it is looking to buy back. The firm said it will pay $0.82 to $1.23 per stock option, and will take a charge of approximately $5.0M for the buyback. Although rare, companies sometimes will buy back severely out-of-money options as a prelude to re-issuing more lucrative options to their employees.