On Valuing Employee Stock Option Plans with the Requisite Service Period Requirement

This paper examines issues involving employee stock option plans as a part of employee compensation. In particular, employee stock options requiring a requisite service period are viewed as an option on options and hence, a compound option, as the employee’s future market wage rate is unknown. Non-transferability of employee stock options is overcome by the well-known put-call parity theorem. Difficulties arise, however, if a firm is privately held. The paper derives a simple formula to value equities for privately held firms.