Mr. Parsons surrendered for cancellation 1,461,392 of common shares held by him at a price of $1.50 per share. Additionally, Mr. Parsons voluntarily surrendered one million options to allow us to grant options to retain employees and competitively recruit strong professional talent. Mr. Parsons also agreed to modify the performance stock grant agreement dated November 8, 2016 (entered while Assure was operating as a private company), which granted Mr. Parsons the right to receive 5,000,000 common shares), to increase certain performance requirements to earn the Performance Shares.
On March 4, 2019, we announced that we entered into a settlement and mutual release agreement with Mr. Willer pursuant to which we cancelled 450,000 stock options (which were granted to Mr. Willer while Assure was operating as a private company and prior to our listing on the TSXV) and to amend Mr. Willer’s right to receive 1,000,000 performance shares (granted to Mr. Willer while Assure was operating as a private company under a performance stock grant agreement) to withhold performance shares to pay liabilities to Assure and under certain third-party contracts and tax liability owed in connection with the issuance of Performance Shares. The remaining Performance Shares will be issued to Mr. Willer at a price to be determined on the issuance date based on the market price of common shares at the issuance date and in accordance with the policies of the TSX-V. In December 2020, Mr. Willer entered into a settlement agreement with certain of his creditors. On January 25, 2021, we issued 219,838 of the 1,000,000 Performance Shares to certain of Mr. Willer’s creditors in connection with that settlement. Under the terms of our mutual release agreement with Mr. Willer, 780,162 Performance Shares remain to be issued.
On March 4, 2020, Mr. Parsons agreed to reallocate 1,700,000 Performance to six employees and/or officers of Assure, including John Farlinger, our CEO (300,000 shares) and Trent Carman, our CFO (200,000), under the terms of Incentive Stock Agreements. On December 29, 2020, we issued 5,000,000 Performance Shares as “restricted common stock” to seven employees and/or officers. The restricted common stock is subject to forfeiture under the terms of Restricted Stock Award Agreements dated December 29, 2020, and will vest on December 31, 2021 or earlier upon satisfaction of certain conditions.
We paid compensation to family members of Preston Parsons, our Founder and a director, for business development services and patient advocate services rendered during the year ended December 31, 2020 totaled $299 thousand.
On August 2020, Assure entered into a $6.5 million Loan Facility with Colorado based, Central Bank & Trust, a part of Farmers & Stockmens Bank. Scott Page, a former member of our Board of Directors, is the Chief Executive Officer of Central Bank.
On December 1, 2020, we entered into securities purchase agreements with the selling stockholders, pursuant to which we sold and issued to the investors an aggregate of 16,357,703 units of the Company at an issue price of $0.64 per Unit, for gross proceeds of $10.5 million. Preston Parsons, our founder and a director, John Farlinger, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Trent Carman, our Chief Financial Officer, and Board members, Chris Rumana and Steven Summer each purchased Units in the private placement and are Selling Shareholders under this Annual Report.
ITEM 14. PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTING FEES AND SERVICES
Each year, the Audit Committee approves the annual audit engagement in advance. The Audit Committee also has established procedures to pre-approve all non-audit services provided by the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm. All 2020 and 2019 services listed below were pre-approved.
Audit and Audit-Related Fees: This category includes the audit of our annual financial statements and review of financial statements included in our annual and periodic reports that are filed with the SEC. This category also includes services performed for the preparation of responses to SEC and NASDAQ correspondence, travel expenses for our auditors, on audit and accounting matters that arose during, or as a result of, the audit or the review of interim financial statements, and the preparation of an annual “management letter” on internal control and other matters.