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[EU] Buying company shares at my job - worth it?
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this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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If you're purchasing shares at a discount that you can immediately sell at full price, that is effectively free money.
Whether you want to hold those shares over a longer term is more complicated. 1) do you think the company is going to be more successful than its competitors? 2) do you think the industry as a whole is healthy and growing? 3) are you comfortable having savings and job dependent on the same organization? (i.e.: if the company has a big loss, you may lose your job and the value of your stock/savings will go down at the same time)
If you're not comfortable answering the first two questions, then you may want to consider buying the discounted shares, selling them immediately, and putting the proceeds into some kind of diversified index fund. Index funds are popular because they diversify around the losses (and successes) of individual companies and individual industries, and bank on the general phenomenon of long-term economic growth. i.e.: population increase and new products.
ESPPs are a great way for the company to get employees to care about share price and get emotionally invested in the success of the company. They're a great way for companies to provide additional compensation to employees (and the executives who put the plans in place) without having to call it salary, which often has tax benefits for both the company and the employee.
I agree with this view. If there is no minimum holding period or a very short period that you are comfortable with, buy as much as you can afford and sell immediately for a quick profit.
With a holding period, you are now speculating that the price won't drop more than the discount. I was very disappointed when my company added a 1 year holding period, but it is a large, stable company with minimal volatility, so I'm continuing to participate.
Holding beyond that, you need to evaluate it as an investment outside your work relationship. Based on what you know as an investor, would you buy and hold shares? What % of your portfolio would you allocate to a single investment? I recall a lot of employees were wiped out when Enron and Worldcom went out of business. They both seemed like great companies until everyone found out about their fraudulent financial statements.