# Stock appreciation right

A promise to pay a manager the increase in value, without shares.

It is the incentive a buyer reaches for when they want a key employee thinking like an owner and do not want a second name on the [cap table](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/cap-table). The right pays cash on a trigger, usually a sale or a fixed date, measured against a starting value agreed at the grant. Settle two things before granting one: what that starting value is, and who computes the later one, because a right written against an undefined number becomes an argument at exactly the moment the business is being sold.

In numbers: A right granted at a $4M value paying 5% of the increase is worth $100,000 if the business sells for $6M.

Source: https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/stock-appreciation-right
Not dated: A definition is editorial: what a term means, why it matters, and an example. None of it reads a source that can go stale, so there is no date to take and a stamped one would be the build time wearing a costume.

Site index for machines: https://searchspheresource.com/llms.txt