VanEck Slams Metaplanet Executive Compensation as 'Bad'

Asset manager VanEck has criticized Metaplanet's executive compensation structure, saying it fails to adequately align management with investors.

The criticism comes in a report examining executive compensation across the 10 largest digital asset treasury companies. In this category, VanEck labeled Metaplanet's compensation structure 'Bad', making it the only firm to fall into the lowest category.

VanEck cited an equity plan equal to 14.7% of fully diluted shares and officer exposure of 8.2%. By comparison, Strategy has an equity plan equal to 2% of fully diluted shares and officer exposure of 0.5%, earning a 'Good' rating from VanEck.

Metaplanet's executive compensation structure was criticized for partly stemming from its former automatic adjustment mechanism, which allowed its option pool to expand as the company issued shares to fund Bitcoin purchases.

The mechanism caused the pool to grow from 46 million shares to 319.5 million, adding roughly 273 million potential shares. In response to criticism, Metaplanet ended the automatic adjustment mechanism in August and cut the overall pool by 41% in September, but VanEck said these changes still fall short.

VanEck recommended that Metaplanet reverse the roughly 273 million-share expansion created by the adjustment clause and replace the remaining rights with a shareholder-approved compensation plan. The asset manager also suggested tying executive compensation to a metric such as Bitcoin per fully diluted share and adopting a written grant-timing policy.