I win, but a whole lot of stockholders win big too. It's a tremendous risk factor. Last year's list showed only a 13 percent increase, and the 1995 average was up less then 12 percent. Compare those numbers, however, with figures from the Virginia Employment Commission, which show that the average weekly wage in the commonwealth rose only 3.6 percent in 1995 and 4.2 percent in 1996. Options are going deeper into organizations today, but options will only trickle down so far.
Executives can better afford to weather a bad year.
With 1987's big correction, she recalls, many executives were forced into bankruptcy because they had borrowed heavily to exercise options. The stock options reflected in this year's Top 100 demand attention. But Fischer says this is just the beginning. The trend started about eight years ago, she says, and many incentive plans have 10-year horizons. We're going to see the baby boom of stock options as they mature in the next decade or so.