Kogan executives handed $17.6m payday three weeks before stock crash

Kogan.com’s two most senior executives made $17.6 million selling options back to the company just three weeks before a profit downgrade pushed the share price so low that the transaction would not have been possible.

The options were issued to the online retailer’s founder and chief executive, Ruslan Kogan, and its chief financial officer, David Shafer, in 2020. This month, the company disclosed that it had struck a deal with the two executives, allowing them to sell the options back to the company for the difference between their strike price and the share price.