[kidintech]

In a vacuum where precise numbers do not exist, maybe.

In this real scenario, if someone's goog shares were vesting at an earlier value - let's take a rough average at a glance of goog YTD to be $145, they will have lost on a year's worth of dividends at $0.2 per share. However, the current share price is $175.

So, through this maneuver, a person holding N goog shares will lose at most 3 quarters of dividends: N * 0.2$ * 3 = N * 0.6$

But they will have gained whatever the stock has appreciated, which at this moment in time works out to: N * (175-145)$ = N * 30$

What am I missing which would make the scenario above result in OP's claim of "dividends devalue issued unvested RSUs"?

EDIT: This also fails to take into account "Dividend Equivalents (DEs)", which are not factored above, and would yield extra income to the person that owns unvested shares.

[formercoder]

Corporate finance theory says that when a dividend is issued, the price of the stock goes down by an equivalent amount.