Keep the focus on your company's greatest asset — your employees

Designing and administering equity compensation plans is a challenge for many companies. While offering a plan helps you create an ownership culture, managing that plan may require additional expertise. At Bank of America Merrill Lynch, we understand your need for a total equity compensation plan that creates value for your company and its employees. We know the stakes are high — and we have the experience and resources to help you deliver a successful program.
We can support you and your employees with your equity compensation needs, including:

• Nonqualified and Incentive Stock Options
• Performance Shares and Units
• Restricted Stock and Units
• Dividend Equivalent Units
• Stock Appreciation Rights
• Employee Stock Purchase Plans
• Institutional Trust and Custody Services

Capabilities

Financial reporting

The Award Choice Financial Reporting™ solution is an on-demand, web-based application that provides customized, comprehensive reports and helps to fulfill your ASC 718 requirements.

Employee Stock Purchase Plan Services

With an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP), corporations can make it possible for employees to purchase company stock at a discount to the fair market value of the stock.

Rule 10b5-1 Trading Plans

We can help your executives design and implement a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, enabling systematic selling or purchasing of company stock at regular intervals.
Implementing a Rule 10b5-1 Trading Plan does not prohibit or prevent legal or regulatory action related to the trades. Trading plans are intended to demonstrate that the purchase or sale of a security of any issuer was not on the basis of material, nonpublic information about that security or issuer and therefore, not in violation of section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934and Rule 10(b)-5.

Executive Services

We understand the unique needs and challenges your officers, directors, and insiders face in managing their equity awards and transacting in company stock. Your insiders will have access to an advisor who understands the complexity of equity awards and the regulations that may govern their transactions; and who can provide the assistance your insiders will need to get the greatest benefit from their awards.

AwardChoice Financial Reporting™ is also commonly referred to as ACFR. Customization of ACFR reports solely relates to report format and appearance. The manner in which information in ACFR reports is grouped, sorted, filtered and the order in which data appears in the report, along with the format of the report, can be customized to match user preferences. ACFR report customization does not provide for or allow custom calculations to be performed in the course of running reports in the system

Implementing a Rule 10b5-1 Trading Plan does not prohibit or prevent legal or regulatory action related to the trades. Trading plans are intended to demonstrate that the purchase or sale of a security of any issuer was not on the basis of material, nonpublic information about that security or issuer and therefore, not in violation of section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10(b)-5.