It was a "gift" from the company when they relaunched as a separate entity. All employees were given 100 shares at the opening price and if you stayed with the company for I think 4 years(the shares soared in value over this period) then you could access the shares. There were 3 options, 1: Sell the shares, 2: Buy the shares at the original opening price or 3: Sell enough shares to be able to purchase the remaining shares at there original price. If you didn't do one of these 3 options then you lost the shares. I choose option 3 as it was a cashless exercise but when I found out that there was a tax liability on it I wrote to the revenue commissioners who advised me that I could defer the tax for 7 years(I paid a lump sum of €1500). I did this in the hope that the shares might increase enough in value to cover the tax liability. The opposite happened and I now have shares worth $500.00 that I have never used and a bill of €10000.