Employee stock options (ESOs) are an integral component of compensation in the US. In fact, almost all S&P 500 companies grant options to their top executives, and the total value accounts for almost half of the total pay for their CEOs. In view of the extensive use and significant cost of ESOs to firms, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has mandated expensing ESOs since 2004. This gives rise to the need to create a reasonable valuation method for these options for most firms that grant ESOs to their employees. The valuation of ESOs involves a number of challenging issues, and is thus an important active research area in Accounting, Corporate Finance, and Financial Mathematics.
In this exciting book, the author discusses the practical and challenging problems surrounding ESOs from a financial mathematician's perspective. This book provides a systematic overview of the contractual features of ESOs and thoughtful discussions of different valuation approaches, with emphasis on three major aspects: (i) hedging strategies; (ii) exercise timing; and (iii) valuation methodologies. In addition to addressing each of these categories, this book also highlights their connections and combined effects of the cost of ESOs to firms, as well as examines the implications to modeling and valuation approaches. The book features a unique approach that combines stochastic modeling and control techniques with option pricing theory, and provides formulas and numerical schemes for fast implementation and clear illustration.
Sample Chapter(s)
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction
Contents:
- Preface
- Introduction
- Risk-Neutral Models with Optimal Exercises
- Top-Down Valuation Approach
- Utility-Based Valuation Methodology
- Static-Dynamic Hedging of ESOs
- Hedging and Exercising ESOs in a Regime-Switching Market
- Forward Indifference Valuation of ESOs
- Bibliography
- Index
Readership: Graduate students and researchers involved in Accounting and Corporate Finance, and Financial Engineering/Mathematics, as well as professionals in the regulatory industry.
Tim Leung is the Boeing Endowed Chair Professor of Applied Mathematics and Director of the Computational Finance & Risk Management (CFRM) program at University of Washington in Seattle. Previously, he was a professor at Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University. He obtained his BS from Cornell University and PhD from Princeton University. His research areas are Quantitative Finance and Stochastic Optimal Control. He has worked on a variety of problems, such as derivatives pricing, algorithmic trading, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), commodities and cryptocurrencies. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). He has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles and several books. Professor Leung has served as the Chair for the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Finance Section and Vice Chair for the SIAM Activity Group on Financial Mathematics & Engineering (SIAG-FME). He is the founding editor of the book series, Modern Trends in Financial Engineering, and the co-editor of the IEEE Intelligent Systems Special Issue on AI and Fintech. He is also on the editorial board of a number of journals, including Stochastic Models, Applied Mathematical Finance, and SIAM Journal on Financial Mathematics.