Is there likely to be a market for private company incentive equity if it's assessed value is more than it's worth?

External question — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Ken - Enough about Monica Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/158307 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Let's say I have some stock options in my company that I can exercise for $x. And the company's value has been assessed by some external entity to revalue the stock to $x+y. The company is still private, but these have (supposedly) intrinsic value, right? So should there be a market for such a thing (e.g. is there?). Or if I purchase, will they just remain in my broker / Carta / whatever entity holds the options?

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: littleadv Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/158308 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. It depends on the company charter. Some companies allow employees trading their shares in what is called "over the counter" (OTC) market . Not all companies allow that, some companies do not allow shares transfer without their prior approval. You'll need to check with your company what their policy is.

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Jacob Krall Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/158316 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Yes, though the actual mechanics depend on your company. Very few private companies allow OTC sales. They may occasionally have a tender offer, during a capital raise, to give employees the opportunity for some liquidity by having their institutional shareholders purchase directly from employees, or by doing a stock buyback. For early-stage employees who wanted to get liquidity from my previous job’s shares, there were a lot of salespeople trawling LinkedIn trying to offer that service for you. The way it works is they give you a loan, with the shares as collateral, and a contract that you will transfer the shares to them as soon as there is the ability to do so. You will not get as much money as in a private sale or a tender offer! But that discount is the price you pay for this bespoke lending process. Be very sure you understand the contract.