British Telecom Group (BT) runs both a sharesave and a share incentive plan (Sip).
Some 46,000 (60%) of its staff belong to the sharesave scheme, administered by Equiniti, and invest an average of £150 a month, while 21,000 (28%) take part in the Sip, investing an average of just under £100 a month.
This is far below the near-100% participation rate the Sip saw until 2007, when BT stopped offering one performance-related free share per employee. It now offers only partnership shares, having replaced the free shares with free BT Total broadband.
Francis O’Mahony, BT’s head of employee share schemes and share registration, says: “We wanted to promote our BT broadband, which we did by getting employees signed up. The level of free shares as a cost to BT was deemed to be part of that cost-reduction process.”
O’Mahony says BT offers a 10% discount on shares bought through its three-year sharesave scheme and a 20% discount through its five-year scheme.
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