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9. Related Party Transactions

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2019

Note 9 – Related Party Transactions

On March 1, 2018, the Board of Directors (the “Board”) of the Company approved and adopted the Black Ridge Oil & Gas, Inc. 2018 Management Incentive Plan (the “Plan”) and the form of 2018 Management Incentive Plan Award Agreement (the “Award Agreement”).

In connection with the approval of the Plan and Award Agreement, the Board approved the issuance of awards (the “Awards”) to certain individuals including officers and directors (the “Grantees”), representing 20% of the shares of AESE held by the Company as of the date of closing of a business combination for the acquisition of a target business as described in the AESE prospectus dated October 4, 2017, as follows:

	Percentage of AESE Shares Owned by the
Name	Company to be Granted to the Grantee
Bradley Berman		1.6%
Lyle Berman		1.6%
Benjamin Oehler		1.6%
Joe Lahti		1.6%
Kenneth DeCubellis		4.0%
Michael Eisele		2.8%
James Moe		2.1%

As of September 30, 2019, and following the AESE merger on August 9, 2019, the Company owned 2,685,500 shares of AESE common stock. As a result, 537,100 shares of AESE common stock (the “AESE Shares”) are committed to employees and directors of the Company. Employees and directors are required to remain in their positions for a one-year period, with certain exceptions, to receive the granted shares. The AESE Shares had a fair market value of $2,809,033 on September 30, 2019. The Company is recognizing the full expense related to the Plan immediately upon the AESE merger date. Compensation expense of $2,309,095 was recognized upon merger and was adjusted on September 30, 2019 to $2,809,033 due to changes in the AESE market price between the August 9, 2019 merger and September 30, 2019. Subsequent adjustments will be required each quarter to adjust the deferred compensation liability until the shares can be transferred to the employees.

Shares Transferred to Purchasers of BRAC Common Stock

As presented in Note 5, In July and August 2019, BRAC and BROG entered into several share purchase agreements (the “Purchase Agreements”) with several parties (collectively referred to as the “Purchasers”). Pursuant to the Purchase Agreements, the Purchasers agreed to purchase an aggregate of $18,000,000 of shares of BRAC’s common stock in open market or privately negotiated transactions. If the Purchasers were unable to purchase the full $18,000,000 of shares of common stock in open market or privately negotiated transactions, BRAC will issue to the Purchasers newly issued shares at the Closing at a per-share price equal to the per-share amount held in BRAC’s trust account ($10.30 per share), and having an aggregate value equal to the difference between $18,000,000 and the dollar amount of shares purchased by them in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. At the Closing, BRAC agreed to issue to the Purchasers 1.5 shares of common stock for every 10 shares purchased by them under the Purchase Agreements. Additionally, the Company agreed to transfer an aggregate of 720,000 shares held by it of BRAC common stock to the Purchasers. The Purchasers included a $3 million investment from Lyle Berman, a member of the board of directors of both BRAC and BROG and the largest shareholder of BROG, and a $2 million investment from Morris Goldfarb, a major shareholder of the Company. Mr. Berman and Mr. Goldfarb received 43,800 and 29,127 bonus shares, respectively, of BRAC common stock issued by BRAC and 120,000 and 80,000 shares, respectively, of BRAC common stock transferred from the Company.

BRAC Convertible Loans

In order to finance transaction costs in connection with an intended initial business combination, BROG had loaned AESE an aggregate $750,000 in the form of convertible notes. The notes were unsecured, non-interest bearing and payable upon the consummation by AESE of a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, or other similar business combination, with one or more businesses or entities (a “Business Combination”). Upon consummation of a Business Combination, the principal balance of the notes could be converted, at BROG’s option, to units at a price of $10.00 per unit. The terms of the units are identical to the units issued by BRAC in its IPO, except the warrants included in such units could be exercised on a cashless basis, in each case so long as they continued to be held by BROG or its permitted transferees. BROG elected to convert $600,000 of the principal balance of the convertible promissory notes and received 60,000 units consisting of 66,000 shares of AESE common stock (after conversion of the stock rights into 6,000 shares) and 60,000 warrants. The remaining $150,000 was repaid to BROG at the date of merger.