Several senior officials of Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) are set to become millionaires, as India's first ever share sale by an exchange opens next week.
The exchange granted 1.96 million stock options under two employee stock option (Esop) schemes in 2006 and 2008 to those eligible, according to regulatory filings.
According to the prospectus, 321,877 options were granted and exercised under the Esop scheme of 2006. Another 1.64 million options were granted under Esop 2008.
"The employees may sell the shares held by them on exercise of options within three months after the listing," the company said.
At the upper end of this price band of Rs 860 to Rs 1,032 per equity share announced on Thursday, these options are worth Rs 203 crore (Rs 2.03 billion).
Paras Ajmera and V Hariharan, directors of the company, have exercised 437,500 options each. At the upper end of the price band, these two will be richer by around Rs 45 crore (Rs 450 million) each.
Former CEO Joseph Massey (18,750), incumbent CEO Lambertus Rutten (12,500) and chairman Venkat Chary (6,250) are other directors holding Esops. All these were exercised at a price of Rs 144, amounting to a gain of seven times the offer price.
Nine other key managerial personnel were also issued a significant number of options. Of these directors and senior managerial personnel, only Massey, Sumesh Parasra-mpuria, director of business development, and Dipak Shah, director-market operations, have said they will sell shares within three months of listing.
While Massey intends to sell 10,000 shares fetching a little over Rs 1 crore, the others intend to sell 6,250 and 2,000