DroneShield Limited (ASX:DRO), a company providing AI-based platforms for protection against advanced threats such as drones and autonomous systems, has announced that 9,224,361 performance options have vested. The vesting is a result of the company achieving a milestone of $200 million in cash receipts within a rolling 12-month period. These options were initially granted to incentivise employees when the company’s sales figures were considerably lower than they are currently.
The vested options are held by employees, including the CEO, who possesses 709,361 of the total vested options. It’s important to note that no non-executive directors hold any of these vested options. Shareholder approval for the CEO’s options was secured at the Annual General Meeting on 28 May 2025. The remaining options were granted in February 2025 to employees under the Incentive Option Plan, which received shareholder approval at the Annual General Meeting on 19 April 2023.
DroneShield’s auditor, HLB Mann Judd, has verified the company’s achievement of the cash receipts performance hurdle for the period spanning from 2 April 2025, to 13 January 2026. Assuming full exercise of all 9,224,361 performance options, the company’s capital structure will include 923,142,028 fully paid ordinary shares, 269,000 exercise price options and 6,998,167 performance options. Furthermore, 995,000 previously issued performance options remain unvested.
In an effort to align incentives with shareholder value, DroneShield introduced an enhanced incentive framework on 4 November 2025. This new structure provides eligible team members with performance options featuring tiered hurdles, requiring them to achieve $300 million, $400 million, and $500 million in revenue or cash receipts over a rolling 12-month period for each tranche to vest. The share option non-cash expense for the year ended 2025 totals $23.5 million.
