Insider stock giveaways at Molycorp (NYSE: MCP) look worse than they are, Fool contributor Tim Beyers says in the following video.
They aren't big, per se, they just aren't tied to any sort of performance metric. Instead, board members Russell Ball and Mark Kristoff received 2,196 and 4,027 restricted shares, respectively, for their service to the company in 2013.
Yet the story doesn't end there. Looking at the footnotes of each Form 4 filing, it appears that Ball and Kristoff took the shares in lieu of cash compensation they'd otherwise be owed as participating members of the miner's board. Molycorp elected to match 25% of their conversion in additional restricted shares vesting over three years.
Is that a good sign? It's certainly not a bad sign, Tim says, since stock is the company's best currency at the moment. Molycorp, burdened with more than $1.3 billion in long-term debt, isn't yet generating consistent free cash flow.
Now it's your turn to weigh in. What do you think of the stock giveaways at Molycorp? Please watch the video to get Tim's full take and then leave a comment to let us know whether you would buy, sell, or short Molycorp stock at current prices.
