By Philippa Larkin 
Aug 5, 2021
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OMNIA Holdings, the JSE-listed diversified chemicals group, yesterday announced the launch of its broad-based employee share scheme, which would see eligible permanent employees as of July 1 receiving an equal number of fully funded shares with an initial three-year vesting period ending on June 30, 2024.
Omnia said the objectives of the scheme was to allow all employees to participate in the group’s growth on a sustainable basis by becoming outright shareholders, irrespective of their geographical location.
The initiative also sought to drive employee engagement, commitment and retention, while aligning with the group’s shared goal of improving performance through enhanced individual and team productivity.
Seelan Gobalsamy, the chief executive of Omnia, said: ‘’The launch of this broad-based employee share scheme is a further demonstration of our commitment to strengthen Omnia’s overall positioning through our reset and growth strategy. It is designed to be inclusive, with all our employees becoming Omnia shareholders and accessing the opportunity to benefit from our future growth by aligning to a common goal of driving performance.”
The shares would be held in a trust, with all eligible employees becoming its beneficiaries and allocated an equal number of trust units linked to Omnia shares.
A total of 1 025 700 million Omnia shares had been acquired for the trust on the open market and were fully funded by Omnia. The participants would also entitled to receive dividends on these shares, it said.
Omnia said it was also envisaged that the trust would enable future allocation to exist, as well as new participants, over time. Executives and management who had been allocated performance forfeitable shares were not eligible to participate in the scheme.
For the year to the end of March, Omnia flagged in its results that it had returned R1 billion in dividends to shareholders as it declared an ordinary dividend of 200 cents a share – the first since 2018 – and a special dividend of 400c, boosted by a strong cash generation of R2.3bn during the period.
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