Ripple-backed Evernorth Holdings has disclosed a $44 million equity award for its CEO in a regulatory filing, while advancing a merger that would create a Nasdaq-listed XRP treasury company. The fourth amended Form S-4, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, updates executive compensation and moves the proposed business combination with Armada Acquisition Corp II closer to completion.
CEO compensation and merger details
The filing sets CEO Asheesh Birla's base salary and grants him an initial equity award valued at approximately $44 million with specified vesting terms. Chief financial officer Matt Frymier would receive a base salary, annual bonus eligibility, and an equity award worth about $5.6 million. Evernorth also disclosed restricted stock unit awards valued at $750,000 for other executives, subject to approval by the board's compensation committee and shareholders.
If the merger receives regulatory and shareholder approval, the combined company is expected to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN. Evernorth has described itself in SEC filings as the largest publicly listed XRP treasury company. According to the filing, the firm has secured more than $1 billion in gross proceeds from investors including Ripple, Arrington Capital, SBI Holdings, Pantera Capital, and Kraken.
Board appointments and Japan expansion
Ripple chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty is expected to join the board alongside Birla and Ted Janus. The proposed board would also include OpenAI Foundation chief financial officer Robert Kaiden and Antalpha chief operating officer Derar Islim. Separately, Evernorth launched a Japanese-language social media account focused on XRP updates and education, stating that Japan supported XRP early. However, the company did not announce a new office, regulatory license, investment, product launch, or local operations in Japan.
Market performance and XRP adoption
Armada Acquisition Corp II shares have largely held their gains, up about 2.25% year-to-date and nearly 0.5% over the past month, though they closed 0.10% lower on Monday. The stock's 52-week high stands at $10.91. Evernorth pointed to rising XRP adoption, noting that tokenized real-world assets on the XRP Ledger increased from roughly $150 million to $4 billion over the past year, supported by spot XRP ETF inflows and growth in new wallets. XRP traded at about $1.10, up 2.3% in the previous 24 hours, with trading volume rising nearly 16% ahead of U.S. CPI data.