If you're a stakeholder, you give freely of your introductions and your time, your contacts. You're not hoarding.'' For recruiters, equity reimbursements often follow the same formula as cash fees. Search agencies have traditionally taken a third of the newly placed executive's first year's salary, but now that fee is combined with a third of the executive's first year's stock options. Stock deals can be complicated, however, and vary widely. Some require no vesting or ''lock-up'' period, so recipients can cash in the minute a company hits the public market.
Some deals involve options and some warrants.
Both represent the right to buy stock at a given price in the future. Warrants, however, tend to be subject to fewer tax and accounting rules and can be issued on a more ad hoc basis than options. A landlord usually has three to six offers, and it becomes a beauty contest. Within the high-technology sector and other companies that are likely to go public, roughly half the deals Mr. Caulkins negotiates involve warrants or options. Rudin Management, which owns highly visible commercial properties like 55 Broad Street and 110 Wall Street in the financial district of Manhattan, has done four such deals.