"CEO has never been paid"Hello Celtic,
Your recent post stated:
I think I am correct in saying that the current CEO has not yet earned any salary from the company since its inception. He has only recieved shares in lieu of his time and efforts. Once it becomes profitable, would it not be unreasonable for the company to pay him what he may have earned over the previous five years for example?
I can confirm from looking at the annual audited financial statements that Mr. Veloso has earned an annual salary every year that has been duly expensed through the accounts of the Company. In many years he was also granted a bonus, along with a series of time limited stock options. These have also been appropriately valued and expensed in the Company accounts.
Instead of taking his salary and bonuses as cash payments, he has agreed to receive treasury shares issued by the Company, valued at the market price of the shares at the time they were issued (usually based on the average trading price over a number of days immediately preceeding the issuance). To be completely clear, Mr. Velsos has been duly "paid in full" for everything he has contractually earned over the 15 years he has been the CEO of the Company, up to and including December 31, 2020.
Let me give you a recent example: on February 20 2020 Mr. Veloso was issued 750,000 Verde common shares at a price of $0.40 to cover $300,000 of salary owing to him from 2019. On July 3 2020 Mr. Veloso was issued 650,426 Verde common shares at a price of $0.50 to cover $325,213 of salary owing to him from 2020 and 2019. On March 5 2021 Mr. Veloso was issued 399,000 Verde common shares at a price of $1.22 to cover $486,780 of salary owing to him from 2020.
So for these 3 examples he received 1,799,426 common shares in settlement of salary compensation totaling $1,111,993 at a weighted average price of $0.618. At today's closing market price of $1.41, the 1,799,426 common shares re received are now worth $2,537,190. Mr. Veloso prudently chose to invest his salary compensation from the last 2 years in shares of Verde, with his investment of $1,111,993 growing by $1,425,197 or 128% in under 1 year.
Most investors are not permitted to use non-public material information to guide their investment decisions - this would be insider trading and prohibited by the securities legislation in the UK and Brazil. However, due to Mr. Veloso's unique situation as the CEO of Verde, any investment decision he makes regarding whether to purchase additional shares of the Comapny cannot fail to be predicated on the material, non public information regarding the Company that he naturally retains in his mind. I have no doubt his recent investment decisions to take shares in lieu of a cash salary were firmly based on his unique knowledge of Verde's situation and future path: it would be illogical to suggest these decisions could have been made in any other way. What he did was not in any way illegal - it was not insider trading for example - it was simply taking advantage of the personal opportunities available to him as Verde's CEO - one of the perks of the job.
In conclusion, I would ask you to reconsider your suggestion that the Company owes Mr. Veloso anything further for his services up to and inclusing December 31, 2020, and should not be thinking "to pay him what he may have earned over the previous five years".
Cheers,
S