SkyWest Employee Stock Purchase Program and 401K

[at7driver]

check your box on ourasa, it was posted either yesterday or today... same deal as SKW

 

[JustaNumber]

This is a loss of potentially several thousand dollars a year. This sucks!

 

[COOPERVANE]

I like how they frame news like this.

"In our continuing effort to offer the most advantageous employee benefits blah, blah, blah"

"ASA will now be an all jet fleet for the first time in 30 years!!" YEA!

They love to speak to us like children.
And will you please STOP with the FAQ format? The program has JUST been announced, there can't be any FAQ!!

 

[CFI2766]

it doesn't affect this period. it will work the same for this purchase period, ending 12/31. you can go to the site and cancel anytime. open enrollment has nothing to do with it.

Wellllll...NO.

It might work differently on the SKYW side of the house. Although the ASA version does allow you to 'change' the % (and therefore, cancel contributions) at any time, the changes will only take affect at the purchase time, either 1 Jan or 1 July. So even though you can request the change through 'Computershare' (something tells me this was the lowest cost provider of this service...) at any time, the change will not be made until the end of the 6 month period.

The changes will not touch any amount purchased during the 1 July 08/1 Jan 09 time frame. However, the 1 Jan 09/1 July 09 time frame will now be limited to only a 5% discount from the closing share price at the end of the period.

The value to the ASA/SKYW employee has been dramatically reduced.

 

[CFI2766]

One more thing, I saw nothing that stated definitively that we would be getting the option to invest in a Roth 401k. For the majority of the junior folks at ASA, the ability to participate in the Roth version of the 401k would be a very good thing.

I saw terms like '...we continue to explore in detail the OPTION to...' and 'we HOPE to be able to...', but nothing concrete.

For recap, in case anyone is wondering, its been a long, long time since we've heard any good news at ASA.

This was clearly the least painful, at least to SKYW, method to cut payroll costs. No doubt, it stinks. That being said, I strongly prefer this to any of the more painful means, to both the managerial types and to the work force, to reduce payroll costs.

 

[aerobat21]

I like how they waited till after open enrollment to tell us. Had I known I would be keeping that money in my check.

you can still bail

 

[Andy Neill]

I have been hearing rumors that the ESPP and 401K at SkyWest changed today. Anyone have details? Are they good changes? What kind of approval did the company seek from the pilots/employees?

That's a shame on the ESPP. That was one of my favorite perks. I was in it to the max. Still, even with only a 5% kicker, that amounts to a 21.1% rate of annualized return on your deposits - not bad.

I suppose some of this is offset by the increrase in Performance Rewards so it may be a wash for many.

 

[SpyFlysDOTs]

That's a shame on the ESPP. That was one of my favorite perks. I was in it to the max. Still, even with only a 5% kicker, that amounts to a 21.1% rate of annualized return on your deposits - not bad.

I suppose some of this is offset by the increrase in Performance Rewards so it may be a wash for many.

Fuzzy math...

 

[Andy Neill]

Fuzzy math...

Hardly. You get 100/95 benefit for 5.26% right off the bat. But that's in a six month period so it's 10.5% annuallized. But the average money involved was only half of the final amount so you are getting an annualized 21.1% return on your monthly investments.

In other words, if you were given the choice to put your money in a savings account with an APY of 20% or do the ESPP, you should choose the ESPP.

Did that shave some of the fuzz?

 

[SpyFlysDOTs]

Andy, do you realize this is on Selling price ONLY not the better of the two prices?