2019 Employee Ownership Australia (EOA) Annual Conference and Awards Night

28 Aug 2019

Best International Share Plan – Aristocrat Leisure Limited

We at BoardRoom would like to extend our congratulations to our client, Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX: ALL) for winning the Best International Share Plan award at the EOA Annual Awards Night, held on Tuesday 20 August 2019.

In an effort to align employees with shareholder and organisational objectives, Aristocrat launched the Aristocrat SuperShare Plan in March 2019, with eligible participants in 21 countries.

As a rapidly growing successful Australian business with a large contingent of employees based in various overseas locations, the Aristocrat remuneration team was in need of a compliant and globally competitive share purchase plan. In order to have that plan appeal to their global employees, Aristocrat sought to venture outside the conventional norms associated with the standard Australian tax deferred salary sacrifice schemes.

Bethany Jones, Director, Group Remuneration at Aristocrat, Kristy Jo, Assistant Corporate General Counsel at Aristocrat, Keshwan Nair, Head of Employee Plan Services at BoardRoom and Mark Saliba, General Manager Business Development at BoardRoom accepting the award at the EOA Annual Awards night.

Focusing heavily on employee share plan education, Aristocrat engaged a specialist firm to launch a marketing campaign tailored to all participating countries. This ensured all employees gained a thorough understanding of the potential benefits from their participation.

Key features of the Aristocrat SuperShare Plan include:

  • Employees can contribute a maximum for 20% of their base salary post tax and up to 100% of annual bonuses (where applicable);
  • As a reward, shares are matched on a 1 matching right for every 3 purchased shares basis;
  • Matching capped to a maximum of $5,000 purchased shares per annum;
  • Matching shares vest into fully paid ordinary shares 2 years after acquisition;
  • Shares acquired through the plan can be sold at any point in time, without triggering the forfeiture of matching rights so long as the employee remains employed; and
  • International participants can contribute in their local currencies (share plan administrator arranges conversion to AUD following the purchase of shares).

BoardRoom is very proud to be working with Aristocrat, providing services for Employee Share Plan administration.

The 2019 EOA annual conference, Setting The Agenda For Change, was held the following day to the Awards night, Wednesday 21 August 2019. The conference provided attendees with great insight on the employee ownership landscape, with discussions and presentations covering:

  • Current legislative changes in Australia;
  • Employee owned SME’s and Start-ups;
  • Stories behind the biggest broad-based employee share schemes in the country; and
  • Recent developments in executive remuneration.

Contact BoardRoom for more information:

Keshwan Nair

Head of Unlisted Fund Services

keshwan.nair@boardroomlimited.com.au
+61 2 9290 9666

Questions?