Why did SAIC go to an outside vendor when its internal broker, Bull, Inc., worked so well?
Bull, Inc. was established as a broker-dealer to conduct limited, batch, periodic trades of non-public securities amongst employee stockholders and with the company. Many of the transactions associated with stock ownership, including option exercises and stock transfers, were carried out by SAIC’s Stock Programs Department. The stock plan administration and transfer agent functions previously performed by Stock Programs are what SAIC outsourced to BNY Mellon in February, 2006. The outsourcing of these functions was required because post IPO, SAIC’s internal systems and resources could not support the IPO-specific and ongoing requirements related to SAIC’s publicly traded security (common stock) and non-publicly traded security (class A preferred stock).
