Deutsche Bank Broadens Stock Option Plan

Enthusiasm for stock options has spread beyond the executive suites-and outside the United States. This week, Deutsche Bank AG said it plans to offer stock options to all its 75,306 employees. Its present stock option plan applies to senior executives only.

A shareholder vote on the plan is scheduled for mid-May. The plan aims to boost performance and rally the rank-and-file, a spokesman said. Deutsche Bank's shares have dipped 2% since the beginning of the year. The bank has ambitions to expand outside Germany, including a pending $10.1 billion acquisition of New York-based Bankers Trust Corp. Already, one- third of its employees are based outside Germany.

"Deutsche Bank is more and more an international institution," said Arman Niedermeier, the spokesman. "We want to give employees abroad an opportunity to participate in our success."

Currently, Deutsche Bank offers a tax-advantaged stock purchase program, but only to employees based in Germany. The new stock option program would be an extension of that stock purchase program, the spokesman said.

If approved, the option program would allow employees to buy up to 60 shares in the bank this year. Each of those shares would come with an option to buy another share.

The ultimate value of the options depends on earnings performance through 2001. The more that profits during that period beat the bank's average profits from 1996 to 1998, the cheaper the price to exercise the options will be.

The program will be available in all countries, local laws permitting, Mr. Niedermeier said.