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by ikeboy 2635 days ago
>It says in relevant part that “our directors, our executive officers and holders of a substantial portion of our capital stock and securities convertible into our capital stock have entered into lock-up agreements …pursuant to which each of these persons or entities, with limited exceptions, for a period of up to 180 days after the date of this prospectus, may not, without the prior written consent of J.P.Morgan Securities LLC, (i)offer, pledge, announce the intention to sell, sell, contract to sell, sell any option or contract to purchase, purchase any option or contract to sell, grant any option, right or warrant to purchase, or otherwise transfer or dispose of, directly or indirectly, any shares of our Class A common stock or any securities convertible into or exercisable or exchangeable for our Class A common stock ... or (ii)enter into any swap or other agreement that transfers, in whole or in part, any of the economic consequences of ownership of the Class A common stock or such other securities.” That captures not only share sales but also options, swaps and other hedging transactions, whether settled in cash or stock, and it is pretty standard language.

From https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-04/token-...

1 comments

EDIT: I actually read the S1 excerpt wrong.

Update: Note that it is carefully worded: "Our directors, executive officers and holders of a substantial portion of our capital stock and securities convertible into our capital stock".

What probably happened is that the company required holders of only a "substantial portion" of stock to sign updated agreements with the underwriters. Neither I nor any of my Lyft stockholding friends ever entered into such an agreement (and Lyft isn't claiming that we, as minor shareholders, did). So as far as I can tell, nothing blocks us from hedging with Morgan Stanley or otherwise.

(Original post was thinking the S1 is wrong; it is not)

Lyft wouldn't be getting upset with Morgan Stanley if all they did was allow minor shareholders who didn't sign agreements to hedge.
Source?
Unfortunately, the actual agreements generally aren't public information. I can't provide mine without risk of loss of anonymity.

Yes, this is a lame answer, but any viewer who has Lyft stock or has friends that do can verify for themselves.

The lock up agreement is publicly available on the SEC’s website (it’s a material contract and therefore required to be filed as an exhibit to the registration statement). The agreement itself is part of the Investors’ Rights Agreement. See section 2.12

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1759509/000119312519...

Seems like it'll hit the courts eventually and then we'll find out if there's a loophole or not.

Lyft is certainly claiming there isn't one, and the S1 says the same. If the S1 is false they might have a securities fraud case on their hands.

What year agreement do you have?

I also signed one - DM me if you want.

FYI, HN doesn't have DMs - you could put a throwaway email in your profile
Thanks, I thought I had :)