An equity swap is a financial derivative contract (a swap) where a set of future cash flows are agreed to be exchanged between two counterparties at set dates in the future.
That kind of arrangement doesn't get you cash today, does it?
I thought that when you said that "he doesn't have to outright sell them on the open market to get cash" you were referring to an alternative way of getting cash - not to an alternative form of payment.
I'm not even sure that it would be really feasible, in any case it would surely be very unusual.
As that link says, the way it goes normally is: "A stock swap occurs when shareholders' ownership of the target company's shares is exchanged for shares of the acquiring company." But here people would not be getting shares of the acquiring company, they would be getting shares of an unrelated company. There is no reason why they would want to keep those shares, so they would quickly flood the market.
