Benefit Plans

6 Months Ended

Apr. 30, 2024

Benefit Plans

Benefit Plans

Note 16. Benefit Plans

Long-Term Incentive Plans

The Board periodically approves Long-Term Incentive Plans which include performance-based awards tied to the Company’s common stock price as well as time-vesting awards. None of the awards granted as part of Long-Term Incentive Plans include any dividend equivalent or other stockholder rights. To the extent the awards are earned, they may be settled in shares or cash of an equivalent value at the Company’s option.

Long-Term Incentive Plan Awards for Fiscal Year 2024:

On December 11, 2023, the Company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”) approved certain awards to be made under the Company’s Long-Term Incentive Plan for fiscal year 2024 (the “LTI Plan”). The LTI Plan is as a sub-plan consisting of awards made under the Company’s 2018 Omnibus Incentive Plan (as amended and restated from time to time, the “2018 Omnibus Incentive Plan”). The participants in the LTI Plan are members of senior management. The awards under the LTI Plan consist of two components:

1) Relative Total Shareholder Return (“TSR”) Performance Share Units (“PSU”). The PSUs granted during the six months ended April 30, 2024 will be earned over the performance period ending on October 31, 2026, but will remain subject to a continued service-based vesting requirement until the third anniversary of the date of grant. The performance measure for the relative TSR PSUs is the TSR of the Company relative to the TSR of the Russell 2000 from October 31, 2023 through October 31, 2026. The Compensation Committee established the performance assessment criteria for the relative TSR PSUs as the TSR of the Company relative to the TSR of the Russell 2000, with the award calibration being 100% plus or minus 0.5x the difference between the Company’s TSR and the Russell 2000 Index composite TSR.  The award is capped at 200% of the target number of PSUs, and the award is further capped at 100% of the target number of PSUs if the Company’s absolute TSR over the performance period is negative.  The Company’s TSR is calculated by subtracting the Company’s beginning stock price (defined as the average closing price of the Company’s common stock over the 20 consecutive trading days ending on October 31, 2023) from the ending stock price (defined as the average closing price of the Company’s common stock over the 20 consecutive trading days ending on October 31, 2026), adding any dividends during the period, and then dividing the result by the Company’s beginning stock price. Given that the performance period is still open, the Company has reserved shares equal to 200% of the target number of PSUs, subject to performance during the remaining performance period as well as vesting based on continued service until December 11, 2026 (the third anniversary of the grant date).

2) Time-vesting Restricted Stock Units (“RSU”).  The time-vesting RSUs granted during the six months ended April 30, 2024 will vest at a rate of one-third of the total number of RSUs on each of the first three anniversaries of the date of grant. 

On December 11, 2023, 6,548,760 RSUs were awarded to senior management under the LTI Plan, which included 3,274,384 PSUs (all of which were contingent) and 3,274,376 time-based vesting RSUs. The 3,274,384 PSUs granted during the three months ended January 31, 2024 were contingent upon approval by the Company’s stockholders of additional authorized shares under the Company’s 2018 Omnibus Incentive Plan, which approval was obtained at the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the “Annual Meeting”) on April 4, 2024.

In addition to the awards granted to senior management, during the six months ended April 30, 2024, the Board also granted a total of 6,202,651 time-based vesting RSUs to certain salaried employees to promote ownership of the Company’s equity and retention. Of the time-based vesting RSUs granted during the six months ended April 30, 2024,

3,978,496 were contingent upon approval by the Company’s stockholders of additional authorized shares of common stock under the Company’s 2018 Omnibus Incentive Plan, which approval was obtained at the Annual Meeting. The time-based vesting RSUs granted during the six months ended April 30, 2024 vest at a rate of one-third of the total number of RSUs granted on each of the first three anniversaries of the date of grant. PSUs are issued assuming participants achieve 100% target performance. The Company also reserves additional shares assuming the maximum performance targets are met.

Share-Based Compensation

Share-based compensation was reflected in the Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss as follows (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended April 30,				Six Months Ended April 30,
	2024		2023		2024		2023
Cost of revenues	$	339	$	413	$	736	$	747
Administrative and selling expense		2,148		2,320		4,195		4,262
Research and development expense		417		363		778		659
	$	2,904	$	3,096	$	5,709	$	5,668

Restricted Stock Units Including Performance Share Units

The following table summarizes our RSU activity for the six months ended April 30, 2024:

Restricted Stock Units	Shares	Weighted-Average Fair Value
Outstanding as of October 31, 2023	6,543,138	$	5.06
Granted - time-vesting RSUs(1)	4,893,269		1.32
Vested	(1,990,154)		7.22
Forfeited	(49,198)		3.51
Outstanding as of January 31, 2024	9,397,055	$	2.67
Granted - time-vesting RSUs	4,583,758		1.14
Granted - PSUs	3,274,384		1.63
Vested	(129,820)		5.13
Forfeited	(63,279)		3.05
Outstanding as of April 30, 2024	17,062,098	$	2.17

(1) This total includes only time-vesting RSUs and does not include the RSUs and PSUs that were contingent upon stockholder approval, as discussed above. Such shares are shown as granted during the three months ended April 30, 2024.