System and method for implementing employee stock plans

• US 7,529,701 B2
• Filed: 11/02/2001
• Issued: 05/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: UBS Business Solutions AG (UBS Ag)
• Original Assignee: UBS PaineWebber, Inc. (UBS Ag)
• Inventors: Mooney, James, Bendre, Hermant, Burns, Julia K., Eng, Eileen, Kelly, Michael, Brewster, George, Humza, James, Turetsky, Alla, Denola, Joseph, Jones, Doug, Rebimbas, John, Vanderhoof, Heather, Shields, Lawrence P., Khanna, Sudhir, Trojan, Mark
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Jagdish N
• Assistant Examiner(s): HAMILTON, SARA CHANDLER
• Application Number:
  US10/003,613
• Publication Number:
  US 20020042771A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,741 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

Tools for implementing employee stock plans including stock options, restricted stock awards and/or and stock purchase plans are provided. A system is provided that comprises volatile data storage for storing participant information pursuant to a data transfer from a non-volatile database of a third party administrative system; an interface system for interacting with a participant regarding a requested transaction and enabling the participant to select a response pertaining to the employee stock plan; a trading system for conducting individual participant transactions on a public exchange, a communication system that connects a participant to the system; and an updating system that updates the participant information in the volatile data storage according to the selections and transactions made by the participant.

Claims

1. A system supporting an employee stock plan comprising:

an administrative server system that receives and stores employer-provided information concerning participants in an employee stock plan limited to acquisition of and trading in one or more of employer-issued stock and options on employer-issued stock;

a trading server system that executes transactions on a public exchange;

a finance server system communicably coupled to the administrative server system and the trading server system over a communications network;

the finance server system receiving the employer-provided participant information from the administrative server system;

the finance server system automatically creating and storing, without participant action, limited brokerage accounts based on the employer-provided participant information, the limited brokerage accounts being funded with one or more of employer-issued stock and options on employer-issued stock and used by the participants to initiate transactions through the trading server system solely in connection with the employee stock plan;

the finance server system presenting an interface through which the participants use the limited brokerage accounts to initiate one or more transactions in connection with the employee stock plan through the trading server system, the one or more transactions comprising one or more of trades involving employer-issued stock and exercising of options on the employer-issued stock;

the trading server system conducting the one or more transactions initiated by the participants using the limited brokerage accounts;

the finance server system updating the limited brokerage accounts with information concerning the one or more transactions;

the finance server system transmitting information concerning the updated limited brokerage accounts to the administration server system; and

the administration server system updating the employer-provided participant information stored in the administrative server system with the information concerning the updated limited brokerage accounts.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein:

the finance server system generates reports based on the one or more transactions conducted through the trading server system using the limited brokerage accounts.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the finance server system creates profiles for the participants associated with an employer profile and generates the reports in accordance with respective user profiles.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which a report template is selected, the finance server system generating the reports in accordance with the selected report template.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the reports relate to at least one of grants outstanding, grants exercised, or options dilution.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which at least a filtering criteria parameter to filter the reports and sort criteria for sorting the reports are selected.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the employee stock plan comprises at least one of an employee stock option plan (ESOP), a restricted stock award (RSA) plan, and an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) that is administered by a financial services organization.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which the participants select a distribution election for the employee stock plan.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which the participants select a contribution election for the employee stock plan.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which the participants select a tax election for the employee stock plan.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein finance server system presents an interface through which the participants access an online form relating to the employee stock plan.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which the participants are notified of at least one of stock option grants acceptance pending, stock option grants expiring, restricted stock tax election not chosen, cash payment due, enrollment election and distribution election.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which the participants are notified of at least one of a restricted stock award and a stock option grant/award, and enables the participant to accept, reject or defer acceptance of the award.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which block trades are performed on behalf of the participants for shares acquired by the participants solely in connection with the employee stock plan.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the finance server system presents an interface through which to sell a block of shares in multiple trades on behalf of the participants for shares acquired by the participants solely in connection with the employee stock plan by entering a share quantity and price for each trade.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the the finance server system presents an interface through which to view trade entries for the employee stock plan and to enter an approved or disapproved status for at least one of an associated check and an associated journal, the check and the journal being linked so that an entry made the journal is automatically carried over to an entry for the check.

17. A method for supporting an employee stock plan comprising:

receiving the employer-provided information concerning participants in an employee stock plan over a communications network from an administrative server system, the employee stock plan being limited to acquisition of and trading in one or more of employer-issued stock and options on employer-issued stock;

automatically creating and storing, without participant action, limited brokerage accounts based on the employer-provided participant information, the limited brokerage accounts being funded with one or more of employer-issued stock and options on employer-issued stock acquired and used by the participants to initiate transactions through a trading server system solely in connection with the employee stock plan;

presenting an interface through which the participants use the limited brokerage accounts to initiate one or more transactions in connection with the employee stock plan through the trading server system, the one or more transactions comprising one or more of trades involving employer-issued stock and exercising of options on the employer-issued stock;

updating the limited brokerage accounts with information concerning the one or more transactions; and

transmitting information concerning the updated limited brokerage accounts over the communications network to the administration server system in order to update the employer-provided participant information stored in the nonvolatile data storage of the administrative server system.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants make a distribution election selection related to the employee stock plan.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants make a distribution election selection related to the employee stock plan, wherein the distribution elections include at least one of:

maintaining funds in a limited brokerage account stored in the finance server system, transferring funds to an external account, receiving funds via a check, selling shares via block trading, and obtaining shares via physical certificate.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants make a contribution election selection related to the employee stock plan.

21. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants make a tax election selection related to the employee stock plan.

22. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants access an online form associated with the employee stock plan.

23. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants access an online form associated with the employee stock plan, the online form including at least one of:

a wire transfer instruction form, a stock option account activation form, and an electronic share transfer form.

24. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants select at least one of a current enrollment period and a future enrollment period in making a selection.

25. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants make a selection regarding at least one of:

designating a payroll deduction, stopping future contributions, and withdrawing previous contributions from the employee stock plan.

26. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants are notified of at least one of:

a stock option grant pending acceptance, an expiring stock option grant, a restricted stock tax election not chosen, cash payment due, and an enrollment election and distribution election.

27. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting an interface through which the participants are notified of at least one of a restricted stock award and a stock option grant/award, and enables the participant to accept, reject or defer acceptance of the award.