NEW YORK, April 2, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As required by New York Stock Exchange rules, Sotheby's (NYSE:BID) today reported the equity inducement awards that have been made to Tad Smith, the Company's new President and Chief Executive Officer, who officially joined the company on 31 March.
As previously disclosed in the Form 8-K filed 18 March setting forth all of the material terms of his employment agreement with the Company, dated 13 March, the inducement awards, which replace incentive and other compensation opportunities that Mr. Smith forfeited by leaving his former employer, consist of: (i) 158,638 shares of restricted stock that will vest in 2016 and 2017 (on the same schedule as the forfeited awards from the prior employer); and (ii) 47,070 additional restricted stock units that replace a portion of the value of the expected annual bonus Mr. Smith would have been paid by his former employer for its fiscal year ended 30 June 2015. These latter restricted stock units will be fully vested, will be credited with dividend equivalents based on the dividends paid on the underlying shares of common stock, and will be distributed to Mr. Smith in three approximately equal installments over the next three years. The remainder of the forfeited annual bonus will be paid in cash in September 2015.
About Sotheby's
Sotheby's has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby's became the first international auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973), India (1992) and France (2001), and the first international fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby's presents auctions in nine different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris, and Sotheby's BidNow program allows visitors to view all auctions live online and place bids in real-time from anywhere in the world. Sotheby's offers collectors the resources of Sotheby's Financial Services, the world's only full-service art financing company, as well as private sale opportunities in more than 70 categories, including S|2, the gallery arm of Sotheby's Contemporary Art department, as well as Sotheby's Diamonds and Sotheby's Wine. Sotheby's has a global network of 90 offices in 40 countries and is the oldest company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.