Pepsi Staff May Get $-Based Stock Options

Key employees of Pepsi's Indian subsidiaries may be allotted dollar denominated stock options in the company's New York-based parent, Pepsi Cola Company.

The stock is currently trading at about $32 a share in the New York Stock exchange, according to officials in Pepsi India. Pepsi India may consider the stock option plan as a strategy to retain its key talent in the country.

"There have been talks of issuing stock options to us. But we are yet to get official word on it,'' a highly placed Pepsi employee told Business Standard.

"The possibility of dollar-denominated stock options in the parent company are definitely there. But no decisions have been take as yet,'' a Pepsi vice president said.

It is learnt that the recent drama involving over a dozen Pepsi employees crossing floors to Coca Cola has strengthened the argument in favour of stock options. Most of the employees have since left Coke and returned to the Pepsi fold. ``It was not the fact that they left, but the manner in which they left which upset us,'' a senior Pepsi official said.

These employees had left even before their resignations were accepted, sources said. Senior Pepsi employees agreed in private that the entire fiasco could have been averted if stock options had been in place.

Top officials, however, asserted that the final decision on dollar-denominated stock options would be driven on overall corporate policies and will not be influenced by such events. "The stock option plan, if announced, will be subject to clearance from the government,'' sources said.

Though the government has already cleared dollar denominated stock options of information technology (IT) firms, it remains to be seen if the government will allow companies such as Pepsi to go ahead with similar proposals.

Pepsi Cola Company may also have to take approval from the Securities Exchange Commission, USA before its allots stock options to its employees in India. Pepsi's operations in India are broadly structured under three subsidiary companies - PepsiCo India Holdings, Pepsi Foods and Pepsi-Cola India Marketing Company.