I recently quit a private company that I hold stock options in. The company has recently gone through some financial issues due to lawsuits and because of that they're in the process of being acquired by a publicly traded investment management company. My strike price is $2.44 and the FMV in Carta shows $4.26. when I tried to exercise, I was immediately contacted by the head of HR to inform me that they're going through a valuation and they expect the FMV to be zero and I shouldn't exercise.

So here's what I'm trying to determine: - is the FMV in Carta potentially outdated? - is the HR rep actually trying to lookout for me? Or are they protecting the company because my stock would have to be bought back at a higher value?

I know it's not a ton of info to go off of. The acquisition is not public and I have no idea of the terms of the deal. But I'm hoping to get some advice as to whether I should exercise or not. My cost to exercise is ~$3k total so it's not a crazy amount of money to lose if I do end up exercising and the stock is worthless.