Directors of two companies could be in the money if they can get share prices to move after being granted millions of options.

AFT Corporation (ASX:AFT) chairman Alan Beasley was gifted 60 million options, convertible at his leisure until they expire on 2021, as part of his pay packet.

The options are worth 0.1c.

Unfortunately, AFT is a very illiquid stock, and is also worth 0.1c. It moved up to 0.2c a couple of times between January and March this year but the last time it moved was in 2011, according to ASX data.

This means that Mr Beasley’s windfall amounts to $60,000 at today’s share price — if he can ever get any away.

Buying, or call options give the owner the right to buy shares at a certain price during a specific period and before a certain time.

The idea is to exercise, or use the options when the share prices is higher than the ‘strike’ price of the option, allowing the owner to sell some of their new shares for a profit.

At Marindi Metals (ASX:MZN) the three directors have been awarded 75 million options in total worth 2c and expiring in 2021.

Chairman John Hutton received 15 million options.

Managing director Simon Lawson got 50 million options.

And director Geoffrey Jones received 10 million options

They have four hurdles: get the company’s market cap to stay above $50 million, $100 million, $150 million and $200 million for a week each.

For a $19 million company with 1.5 billion shares already on issue that seems to be a high barrier to jump.

But the company’s shares closed at 1.1c on Friday.

Marindi’s share price over the last year.

To reach the first hurdle the share price has to reach 3.3c. The next is 6.6c, then 9.8c and finally 13c.

Marindi’s 52-week high is 2.2c, even after selling its Bellary Dome conglomerate gold project in WA’s Pilbara to Canada’s Pacton Gold in a cash and scrip deal worth over $C10 million ($10.2 million).

Company secretary Jeremy Robinson was not concerned about possible share price pumping, saying if the share price goes up that is good for investors and means the directors are doing their job.

Mr Lawson told Stockhead they plan to lift the share price by “exploration success” mainly at their Forrestania project.

He said if the company can get to half of Kidman Resources is they will meet the hurdles.

“Those guys stumbled over that deposit [Earl Grey on Mt Holland] and almost became a billion dollar company,” he said.

Marindi took Kidman (ASX:KDR) to court in 2016 to try to wrench the Mt Holland lithium licence area away from them but failed, agreeing to pay costs of $650,000 just last month.

Marindi did get its Forrestania lithium land though, and has tenements along strike from Kidman’s at Mt Holland.

Featured Companies

You might be interested in