What happens to options if a company is acquired / bought out?
A lot may depend on the nature of a buyout, sometimes it's is for stock and cash, sometimes just stock, or in the case of this google deal, all cash.   Since that deal was used, we'll discuss what happens in a cash buyout. If the stock price goes high enough before the buyout date to put you in the money, pull the trigger before the settlement date (in some cases, it might be pulled for you, see below).  Otherwise, once the buyout occurs you will either be done or may receive adjusted options in the stock of the company that did the buyout (not applicable in a cash buyout). Typically the price will approach but not exceed the buyout price as the time gets close to the buyout date. If the buyout price is above your option strike price, then you have some hope of being in the money at some point before the buyout; just be sure to exercise in time. You need to check the fine print on the option contract itself to see if it had some provision that determines what happens in the event of a buyout.  That will tell you what happens with your particular options.   For example Joe Taxpayer just amended his answer to include the standard language from CBOE on it's options, which if I read it right means if you have options via them you need to check with your broker to see what if any special exercise settlement procedures are being imposed by CBOE in this case. "When the buyout happens, the $30 strike is worth $10, as it's in the money, you get $10 ($1000 per contract). Yes, the $40 strike is pretty worthless, it actually dropped in value today. Some deals are worded as an offer or intention, so a new offer can come in. This appears to be a done deal. From Chapter 8 of CHARACTERISTICS AND RISKS OF STANDARDIZED OPTIONS - FEB 1994 with supplemental updates 1997 through 2012; ""In certain unusual circumstances, it might not be possible for uncovered call writers of physical delivery stock and stock index options to obtain the underlying equity securities in order to meet their settlement obligations following exercise. This could happen, for example, in the event of a successful tender offer for all or substantially all of the outstanding shares of an underlying security or if trading in an underlying security were enjoined or suspended. In situations of that type, OCC may impose special exercise settlement procedures. These special procedures, applicable only to calls and only when an assigned writer is unable to obtain the underlying security, may involve the suspension of the settlement obligations of the holder and writer and/or the fixing of cash settlement prices in lieu of delivery of the underlying security. In such circumstances, OCC might also prohibit the exercise of puts by holders who would be unable to deliver the underlying security on the exercise settlement date. When special exercise settlement procedures are imposed, OCC will announce to its Clearing Members how settlements are to be handled. Investors may obtain that information from their brokerage firms."" I believe this confirms my observation. Happy to discuss if a reader feels otherwise."
Let me ask you something else: If you knew about a company that makes $1 million of profit per year and growing, with costs that are half that, would you not be interested to have a stake in this company?  Of course you would. And because the shares can be publicly bought, you can. I don't think you'd care if it's an asset manager or some other company.  An asset manager can do a lot with the capital it raises. It could get bigger and better offices, invest in a better computer system, maybe get faster access to exchange information, better information terminals, have more money for marketing and road shows. But the really big cash usually goes to acquire new talent. You might not need that much money for support staff, but a sales manager can be expensive, and a good fund manager can easily cost a high 7 to 8 figure number per year. Good idea, but you can already imagine how that will turn out: Patents will be used in some pro-forma way, without intention of serious commercial use, to avoid using them.  For trademarks, this already happens. After a merger, companies continue to formally use a brand/trademark of an acquired company that they have effectively terminated, in order to avoid other companies using that trademark (or a very similar one). "Ordinarily a stock split increases all shareholders' share counts, so that there is no change in anybody's voting power.  For example, if you owned 1% of the company before the split, after the split you now have twice as many shares, but there are now twice as many shares outstanding, so you still own 1% of the company.  Also, stock splits are not ordinarily ""triggered"".  Usually they happen when the board decides that for one reason or another it's desirable to increase the number of shares in circulation, which causes the price of each share to decrease proportionally.   I'm not familiar with the show, and in particular I don't know what the action is that the character being addressed is thinking of taking, but it sounds like they are describing something akin to a ""poison pill"".  In these arrangements, the ""pill"" is triggered by some predefined condition, say a party acquiring shares in excess of a defined threshold.  What typically happens is that shareholders other than the ones who triggered the pill get a chance to buy shares at a substantial discount, thereby diluting the shares of the party that triggered it.  Because the other shareholders have to buy their additional shares, albeit at a discount, and because it applies only to certain shares, it's not really a split, but it's close enough that the writers of the show may have felt it was worth using the term that is more familiar to the public." Generally speaking: when a company buys another company it's a complex agreement that spells out many things, including how the acquiring company is paying for the target company.  These are the most common form of payment:  1. Cash. Shareholders of the target company get cash. 2. Shares. Shareholders of the target company get shares of the acquiring company. 3. A combination of 1 and 2 above. "Your scenario depicts 2 ""in the money"" options, not ""at the money"". The former is when the share price is higher than the option strike, the second is when share price is right at strike. I agree this is a highly unlikely scenario, because everyone pricing options knows what everyone else in that stock is doing. Much about an option has everything to do with the remaining time to expiration. Depending on how much more the buyer believes the stock will go up before hitting the expiration date, that could make a big difference in which option they would buy. I agree with the others that if you're seeing this as ""real world"" then there must be something going on behind the scenes that someone else knows and you don't. I would tread with caution in such a situation and do my homework before making any move.   The other big factor that makes your question harder to answer more concisely is that you didn't tell us what the expiration dates on the options are. This makes a difference in how you evaluate them. We could probably be much more helpful to you if you could give us that information." "For new shares to be successfully sold, the price has to be below market price. If you currently own shares of that company, you should always get an option to buy those newly sold shares at that discounted price. The number of options depends on the relative number of shares you hold. Lets say you own 100 out of 1000 shares, currently priced at $10. 100 new shares are to be sold at $9. Since you are holding 10% of all shares, you have the option (i.e. the right) to buy 10 new (cheaper) shares (10% of 100) before anybody else can buy them. Theoretically, the money you save by getting the shares at a discounted price is equal to the money you lose by the share's value being diluted. So, if you're a shareholder and the company is increasing it's capital, you're given the right to ""go with it""." In the case of regulated, exchange-traded options, the writer of an options contract is obliged to maintain a margin with their broker, and the broker is obliged to maintain a margin with the clearing house.  (Institutional writers of options will deal directly with the clearing house.) In the event that the writer is unable to make a daily margin call, the broker (or clearing house) may automatically close out (all of) their positions using existing margin held.  If there was a shortfall, the broker (or clearing house) would be left to persue the client (writer) to make good on their obligations. None of this effects the position of the original buyer of the options contract.  Effectively, the buyer's counterparty is their broker's clearing house account. The buyer pays $1.99/share for the option of selling a share of AMD to the seller for $10 which is currently $1.94 higher than the price of $8.06/share.  If you bought the put and immediately exercised it, you would come out of the deal losing $.05/share.