Company: ACTG
Filing Date: 2025-04-09
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0000934549-25-000014
Chunk: 50

Company: ACACIA RESEARCH CORP
Filing Date: 2025-04-09
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 50
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 acts as a member of Principal GP and as a member of each of the Management Committee of Starboard Value GP and the Management Committee of Principal GP. Each of the foregoing disclaims beneficial ownership of these securities except to the extent of its or his pecuniary interest therein. |

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### EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND RELATED INFORMATION

#### Executive Summary
This narrative discussion of our named executive officer compensation program is intended to assist your understanding of, and to be read in conjunction with, the Summary Compensation Table and related disclosures set forth below. We are a smaller reporting company, and therefore, we are eligible to comply with the executive compensation disclosure rules applicable to a smaller reporting company as defined in applicable SEC rules and regulations. We determined that it is not in the best interest of shareholders to spend significant company resources to include a full compensation, disclosure and analysis (“CD&A”) in this proxy statement without the legal requirement to do so, as such cost could be material to our shareholders. We, however, have made a good faith effort to include fulsome disclosure of our pay practices without expending the significant time and money required to develop a full CD&A.

In evaluating our 2024 compensation program, it is important to understand the following:

• Beginning in June 2023, in order to more strongly link executive pay and Company long-term performance and increase shareholder alignment, the Compensation Committee approved a new long-term incentive (“LTI”) construct. Specifically, the Compensation Committee determined to shift the timing of annual LTI grants such that awards are granted on a forward-looking basis as opposed to a backward-looking basis in respect of prior fiscal year performance, and deliver a combination of time-vested restricted stock units (“RSUs”) and performance-vested restricted stock units (which are eligible to be earned based upon the level of achievement of the Company’s compound annual growth rate of its adjusted book value per share, measured over a three-year period) (“PSUs”).

• The June 2023 LTI awards (the “2023 LTI Grants”) were front-loaded to deliver two years of target grant value to cover annual LTI grants in respect of fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

• As a result of the above, 2023 LTI participants did not receive an additional LTI grant in fiscal year 2024. Participants are next eligible to receive annual LTI awards commencing in fiscal year 2025.

For the 2024 fiscal year, our named executive officers were