EMPLOYEE stock option plans, or ESOPs, can be a great tool to align interests, incentivise staff and attract new hires, especially for startups, where the payoffs can be huge. But what is promised isn't always what is delivered, as some employees have found.

In Brunch tomorrow in The Business Times Weekend, we delve into how founders and financiers can make ESOP schemes better for employees and investors as well as the company.

After building an illustrious career in the US, feted international lawyer Cheng Tai-Heng, global co-head of international arbitration and trade at Sidley Austin LLP, returns to lead the firm's team in Singapore. He tells The Raffles Conversation why Singapore's role in arbitration will continue to grow, and how the understanding of what it means to be a lawyer has changed over the decades.

China stocks, once a proxy for booming growth, have staggered in shock lately, as the Chinese government took action in major profitable sectors like tech and education. Have China equities become "un-investable"? This Time Is Different looks at the market.

In Fine Print, our reviewer finds in Amartya Sen's new memoir a testimony to the value of a life lived in the twin pursuit of freedom and reason.

Surprise, surprise, the most affordable version of BMW's best-selling SUV is the pure electric one. Find out if the BMW iX3 has other surprises, pleasant or otherwise, in store, in The Steering Column.

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About 50 per cent of women die within five years of a heart attack. In our Health page this week, a look at the sobering statistics and symptoms, and why such cardiac events are deadlier for women than for men.

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