Photo: Mary Altaffer / AP
Current Uber employees eligible to sell shares to SoftBank are only allowed to tender up to 50% of their holdings, while there are no such restrictions on outside investors or former employees, according to multiple sources. The vast majority of Uber employees are not eligible, because they received restricted stock units rather than stock options.
Bigger picture: For years there has been alignment of interests between current and former Uber employees, in terms of stock value. This restriction changes that dynamic.
- Uber founder and chairman Garrett Camp hasn't publicly said if he'll participate in the tender, but on Thursday night he tweeted that he's "looking to buy a significant amount of digital currency for the first time... I'm not going to trade, just buy and hold." He later deleted the tweet.
- Eligible shareholders have until Dec. 28 to tender.
- "Investor slogging," is a term that was used by Uber's former C-suiters to describe how they'd work to get big investors on their side, so they don't end up backing the competition. Wine 'em. Dine 'em. This is how the original conversations with SoftBank began, while both Travis Kalanick and Emil Michael were still in charge.