SMITHFIELD – The takeover of eyewear maker FGX International Holdings Ltd. last week by a French company meant a hefty payday for the company’s senior executives.
As part of the merger deal, Essilor International S.A. agreed to pay FGX stockholders $19.75 cash for each of their FGX shares. Essilor also gave executives cash to reimburse them for FGX stock options they owned that were cancelled because of the merger.
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The biggest payout went to FGX President John H. Flynn Jr., who received $6.6 million from Essilor, according to an analysis of Securities & Exchange Commission filings by Providence Business News.
Flynn got $4.6 million for his 230,184 ordinary shares of FGX stock. The rest of the money covered 185,671 stock options he could have exercised in 2014 and 2018.
Flynn, 59, became FGX’s president in December 2004 after serving as president and CEO of its predecessor company, Accessories Associates Inc., from 1985 to 1998. He first joined the firm in 1982, when it was Femic Holdings Inc.
The next largest payout went to FGX CEO Alec Taylor, who received $5.3 million from Essilor. He got $2.8 million for his 142,399 ordinary shares of FGX stock plus 39 shares owned by his wife. The rest covered 480,962 stock options he could have exercised in 2015 and 2018.
Taylor, 56, became FGX’s CEO in October 2005 after nearly seven years as president and CEO of Chattem Inc., the maker of Gold Bond medicated body powder. Before that he had been an attorney in Tennessee since 1978.
The third-biggest payout went to Executive Vice President of Sales Steven Crellin, who received $2.5 million from Essilor, 94 percent of which covered stock options he could have exercised between 2014 and 2018. Crellin, 50, who was also president of FGX’s Dioptics Medical Products Inc. division, joined the company in 1998.
FGX’s other executives and directors all received less than $1 million from Essilor. Hasbro Inc. Chairman Alfred J. Verrecchia, for example, got $131,375 after spending a year on the company’s board of directors.
FGX announced Dec. 15 that its board had approved a bid by Charenton-le-Pont, France-based Essilor to acquire the company for $565 million. Shareholders signed off on the merger last week.
Additional information is available at fgxi.com.
