Heartland Payment adopts new stock option plan

Credit and debit card payment processor Heartland Payment Systems said Friday its board approved new stock option grants that are tied to significant growth in the company's revenue and earnings.

Under the plan, the company can award up to 2.5 million stock options to senior management and information technology workers.

But employees won't be able to convert the options to shares for five years, and can only do so if the company's revenue grows at an annual rate of 15 percent and earnings per share grows at a rate of 25 percent during those five years.

The company said the options are intended to provide incentives for the management and IT teams to integrate a new payment processing unit that Heartland purchased from Alliance Data Systems in May.

Heartland's shares rose 25 cents to $22.10 in late afternoon trading.