Globalshares

Global Shares is an equity compensation and cap table platform for companies that run share plans across more than one country. It administers stock options, RSUs, long-term incentive plans and employee share purchase plans, gives participants their own portal, and produces the reporting that finance and legal teams need. J.P. Morgan acquired the business in 2022 and it now operates as part of J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions, so you will see both names in use.

What you can actually do with it

The centre of gravity is plan administration for a workforce spread across jurisdictions, rather than a simple ownership record.

• Administer share plans. Run options, RSUs, LTIPs and ESPPs from grant through vesting, exercise and settlement, with the plan rules encoded rather than tracked by hand.
• Maintain the cap table. Keep share classes, holders and transaction history in one register alongside the employee plans that dilute it.
• Give participants a portal. Employees see their grants, vesting dates and documents, in multiple languages and currencies, and can transact where share dealing is supported.
• Produce financial reporting. Generate share-based payment expense and disclosure reporting under standards such as ASC 718 and IFRS 2 for your auditors.
• Handle cross-border requirements. Support for local filing, withholding and mobility scenarios when employees work in, or move between, different countries.
• Connect to your other systems. APIs and integrations feed data to and from HRIS and payroll so leaver and joiner changes reach the plan records.
• Lean on a service team. Implementation and ongoing administration come with dedicated staff rather than being purely self-service.

Who it fits best

It suits mid-sized to large employers with real international complexity: a few hundred participants upwards, employees in several tax jurisdictions, and an HR, reward or finance team responsible for compliance. It is also used by later-stage private companies preparing for a listing, where a plan built for a dozen people needs to work for a few thousand.

It is heavier than a small startup needs. If you have twenty employees in one country and a straightforward option pool, a lighter cap table tool will be quicker to set up and cheaper to run. The value here is in scale, multi-country rules and the reporting burden that comes with them.

Things worth knowing before you commit

• Pricing is quoted, not published. Expect a proposal based on plan types, participant numbers and services rather than a self-serve price list. Ask for the full cost including implementation and any per-transaction charges.
• Implementation takes time. Loading historical grants, plan documents and local rules is a project measured in weeks or months, usually with input from your legal and payroll teams.
• The interface reflects its enterprise roots. It is built for administrators handling complex plans, and reviewers commonly find it less immediately intuitive than newer startup-oriented tools.
• It is not a substitute for advice. The platform executes and records what your plan rules say. Plan design, tax treatment for the company and for participants, and cross-border obligations should be settled with qualified legal and tax advisers.
• You are entering a banking relationship. Being part of J.P. Morgan brings scale and service depth, but also procurement, due diligence and onboarding processes that take longer than signing up for a SaaS product.

Alternatives to compare it against

Compare it with the other enterprise equity administrators, such as Shareworks by Morgan Stanley and Fidelity’s stock plan services, which occupy similar ground for large and public companies. For earlier-stage companies, Carta, Pulley and Ledgy are lighter and faster to adopt, with Ledgy often preferred in Europe for local share schemes. If your requirement is really just an accurate register for a small group of shareholders, a specialist cap table tool or your company secretarial provider may be enough. In every case, involve the advisers who will sign off your plan before you choose the system that runs it.

Service inclusions, plan support and pricing change and are usually quoted per company. Check the vendor’s own pricing and product pages for current details before deciding.

Further reading

• The Best 5 Equity Management Tools for Start-ups and SMEs — the lighter cap table options mentioned as alternatives for smaller employers.
• Employee Benefits Management: A Beginner’s Guide — frames share plans within the wider reward package HR teams administer.
• Cloud Based HRIS: An Overview — the systems this platform has to sync joiner and leaver data with.
• 10 Best Multi-Entity Accounting Software 2024 — relevant when share-based payment expense has to land in several jurisdictions’ books.

Have you used Globalshares?

One sentence is enough. Would you pick it again, and why or why not? We publish the critical reviews too — that is the point.