Apple execs cash in on summer stock run-up

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Two of Apple's top executives have taken advantage of investor confidence after the company's strong spring quarter results, selling off stocks and stock options in a transaction that saw over $30.3 million change hands in a single day.



Both the company's financial chief Peter Oppenheimer and Board of Directors member Bill Campbell have sold significant portions of their Apple investment on July 30, according to filings with the Security and Exchange Commission. The move comes just days after the company's July 25 spring quarterly report triggered a record share price for the year.



Oppenheimer was the most aggressive, selling 135,625 shares at a value of $144.28 each and netting roughly $19.6 million in a single transaction.



Campbell, who also heads up tax software firm Intuit in addition to his role at Apple, took a staggered approach. Spreading out his transactions over the course of the day, Campbell exercised the stock options granted to him to sell 77,051 shares at varying prices. After factoring in the stock option fee -- which subtracted nearly $6 from every share -- the board member collected about $10.7 million in profits.



Unlike the most recent share exchange by Oppenheimer and other top Apple officials, the latest transaction was not prompted by a desire to settle taxes and appears to be a strict profit-taking maneuver.



Coincidentally, the sell-off came just a day before an off-hand comment spread by analysts caused a significant drop in Apple's stock value, which had yet to fully recover as of Monday.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    The sell-off also came just a day before an off-hand comment spread by analysts caused a significant drop in Apple's stock value, which had yet to fully recover as of Monday.



    So in other words Apple execs can (very efficiently) predict the future and sell before stock plummets . What's new?
  • Reply 2 of 19
    wallywally Posts: 211member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    the latest transaction was not required by federal rules and appears to be a strict profit-taking maneuver.



    Wow. So the government still allows that sort of thing huh?
  • Reply 3 of 19
    spindriftspindrift Posts: 674member
    I don't see what the fuss is about. What's the point of owning shares if you can't trade with them?



    Now if Apple execs manipulated the market or share prices for personal gain, then that is bad. But I don't see any reason why they can't buy and sell the same way we would.
  • Reply 4 of 19
    mugwumpmugwump Posts: 233member
    If I'm not mistaken, Apple execs have been selling shares and jumping ship for the past few years. I guess it's time to pay off some mortgages.
  • Reply 5 of 19
    This is a complete non-story, and full of unfortunate innuendo.



    Here's the link for all of Mr. Oppenheimer's trades in the past three years:



    http://biz.yahoo.com/t/11/6289.html



    He has sold (on autopilot) all the way from ~$9 per share to his most recent sale at $144+ per share.



    For instance, he sold 114,000 shares at ~$60 a while ago. Do you think he was signaling that AAPL had peaked at $60?



    For AI to make a statement such as "......the latest transaction was not required by federal rules and appears to be a strict profit-taking maneuver" is completely irresponsible and not based on any facts whatsoever.



    Btw, what is a "transaction required by federal rules"? As far as my knowledge goes, that is plain and pure nonsense.
  • Reply 6 of 19
    thecrowthecrow Posts: 11member
    Exactly, Spindrift. Why does everyone infer that there's something shady going on? In many cases, a good chunk of their salary is in the form of stock, instead of cash. Selling some of it doesn't indicate any lack of confidence in the company, or prediction of stock crashes. They're not doing anything wrong. Maybe they'd just like to enjoy some money while they're young enough. I would. Sell some stock, buy an island, throw some parties...yup.



    Nice post, anantksundaram. AppleInsider seems to be sensationalizing their news of late...
  • Reply 7 of 19
    kasperkasper Posts: 941member, administrator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    This is a complete non-story, and full of unfortunate innuendo.



    Here's the link for all of Mr. Oppenheimer's trades in the past three years:



    http://biz.yahoo.com/t/11/6289.html



    He has sold (on autopilot) all the way from ~$9 per share to his most recent sale at $144+ per share.



    For instance, he sold 114,000 shares at ~$60 a while ago. Do you think he was signaling that AAPL had peaked at $60?



    For AI to make a statement such as "......the latest transaction was not required by federal rules and appears to be a strict profit-taking maneuver" is completely irresponsible and not based on any facts whatsoever.



    Btw, what is a "transaction required by federal rules"? As far as my knowledge goes, that is plain and pure nonsense.



    Standing by my editor, I must say that I don't 100 percent agree with you. When Peter sold the 114,000 shares at around $60 per share, he did so to meet his tax obligations on a grant for 250,000 shares. He otherwise would not have sold those shares. He had to pay those taxes at that time. He had no choice. He could have chose to pay from his pocket, I presume, but net share settling (selling some of the shares to cover the taxes on those the total number of shares provided by the grant) was the more economical option at the time.



    Peter, from that link, also does not appear to have acted with any form of consistancy with his "automatic" sales, as you suggest. For instance, prior to the July 30th sale of of 135,000+ shares, the most he moved was 49,000, with the other transactions being much, much smaller.



    The phrase "the latest transaction was not required by federal rules" was a poor explanation and has been corrected. Nevertheless, it's clear the latest sale was profit driven and I don't see anything wrong with putting that in print.



    Best,



    K
  • Reply 8 of 19
    kasperkasper Posts: 941member, administrator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheCrow View Post


    Nice post, anantksundaram. AppleInsider seems to be sensationalizing their news of late...



    Please see my response, above.



    Kasper
  • Reply 9 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kasper View Post


    Standing by my editor, I must say that I don't 100 percent agree with you. When Peter sold the 114,000 shares at around $60 per share, he did so to meet his tax obligations on a grant for 250,000 shares. He otherwise would not have sold those shares. He had to pay those taxes at that time. He had no choice. He could have chose to pay from his pocket, I presume, but net share settling (selling some of the shares to cover the taxes on those the total number of shares provided by the grant) was the more economical option at the time.



    Peter, from that link, also does not appear to have acted with any form of consistancy with his "automatic" sales, as you suggest. For instance, prior to the July 30th sale of of 135,000+ shares, the most he moved was 49,000, with the other transactions being much, much smaller.



    The phrase "the latest transaction was not required by federal rules" was a poor explanation and has been corrected. Nevertheless, it's clear the latest sale was profit driven and I don't see anything wrong with putting that in print.



    Best,



    K



    A couple of observations (and please understand that I am not trying to be an apologist for Mr. Oppenheimer -- I am just suspending judgment, since I don't know all the motives and facts):



    1) You say, "...prior to the July 30th sale of of 135,000+ shares, the most he moved was 49,000...". That does not square with the data I see from the link I provided, which shows that, for instance, he sold 200,000 shares on Jan 3, 2006, for about $73 per share. I could just as easily have picked that as the example (instead of the 114K shares at $60 per share).



    2) Perhaps he sold the 114K for tax reasons. I'll certainly take your word for it. But do we know the reason why sold the recent 135K on July 30, 2007? I looked that the SEC filing on that (http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/3.../rrd167161.xml) and, as usual, no reason is given (and none should be expected). I think it is jumping the gun a bit on AI's part to speculate that it is for "strict" profit reasons (see your story above). How do we know that? For instance, why could not be for some other equally valid reason, such as more taxes?



    3) I only said that he has had a lot of "automatic" sales in the past few years (just as this one also was). I did not say, or imply, anything about consistency in stock sales.



    4) You say: "The phrase "the latest transaction was not required by federal rules" was a poor explanation and has been corrected." Yet, I still see exactly that sentence in the story (as I am writing this).



    Look, you guys/gals do an outstanding job of being fair, most of the time. This happens to be one of those (rare) instances when the story seems to have badly overreached.
  • Reply 10 of 19
    And, I could have added:



    Oppenheimer 'automatically' sold another 120K shares at ~$75 per share on Jan 4, 2006 (the day after he sold 200K on Jan 3), thus selling a total of 320K in just two days in early 2006.



    And, if that seems odd, he 'automatically' sold 350K shares at between $52 and $56 per share on Oct 19-20, 2005.



    I see a pattern that suggests nothing remotely problematic (since you imply a 'coincidence' of this event and the stock price drop -- that, on a day that the Dow fell 280+ points, and one might have expected Apple to drop too).



    Also, nothing that suggests that Oppenheimer was any good at timing his sales if he actually thought that Apple had peaked at the prices he sold (e.g., the 50s and the 70s)!
  • Reply 11 of 19
    kasperkasper Posts: 941member, administrator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    A couple of observations (and please understand that I am not trying to be an apologist for Mr. Oppenheimer -- I am just suspending judgment, since I don't know all the motives and facts):



    1) You say, "...prior to the July 30th sale of of 135,000+ shares, the most he moved was 49,000...". That does not square with the data I see from the link I provided, which shows that, for instance, he sold 200,000 shares on Jan 3, 2006, for about $73 per share. I could just as easily have picked that as the example (instead of the 114K shares at $60 per share).



    2) Perhaps he sold the 114K for tax reasons. I'll certainly take your word for it. But do we know the reason why sold the recent 135K on July 30, 2007? I looked that the SEC filing on that (http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/3.../rrd167161.xml) and, as usual, no reason is given (and none should be expected). I think it is jumping the gun a bit on AI's part to speculate that it is for "strict" profit reasons (see your story above). How do we know that? For instance, why could not be for some other equally valid reason, such as more taxes?



    3) I only said that he has had a lot of "automatic" sales in the past few years (just as this one also was). I did not say, or imply, anything about consistency in stock sales.



    4) You say: "The phrase "the latest transaction was not required by federal rules" was a poor explanation and has been corrected." Yet, I still see exactly that sentence in the story (as I am writing this).



    Look, you guys/gals do an outstanding job of being fair, most of the time. This happens to be one of those (rare) instances when the story seems to have badly overreached.



    OK -- I didn't scroll down all the way on the yahoo page. Yes I see the 200K transaction now. But again, that is one of two large transactions, while dozens of others are much smaller. Neverthless, stock is traded for profit. No one trades stocks with the objective of achieving a loss, so I'm not really sure what your point is. Our wording was simply explaining that he sold the shares to get cash, not to pay taxes.



    As for the phrase remaining in the story, that was only on the forums versions of the story. Our system is quirky, where updates happen on the main page well ahead of the forums. It should be fixed now. And we're working on improving this in the future.



    I do, very much, appreviate your feedback,



    Kasper
  • Reply 12 of 19
    Sorry for yet another follow-on post: I note that you have replaced "....the latest transaction was not required by federal rules..." with "...the latest transaction was not prompted by a desire to settle taxes...".



    Just noting that so people don't get confused by my earlier post.
  • Reply 13 of 19
    kasperkasper Posts: 941member, administrator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    Sorry for yet another follow-on post: I note that you have replaced "....the latest transaction was not required by federal rules..." with "...the latest transaction was not prompted by a desire to settle taxes...".



    Just noting that so people don't get confused by my earlier post.



    It's all good, man Not many people seem to be interested in these kind of stories around here (when compared to others). So I'm more than happy to have the discussion. It's already helped clarify the report for new readers.



    I still don't think there was any intentional leaning on the part of Aidan. Just poor wording. Having said that, and for the sake of discussion, Peter's made A LOT of money since becoming CFO of Apple. If anyone wants to look it up, I'm sure he'd rank pretty high in a comparative list for the time span. Not that there's anything wrong with it. Having said all that that, I still think it's a story. Not the greatest story, but not a 'non-story.' Anyway, we felt like writing about it =P





    Best,



    K
  • Reply 14 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kasper View Post


    It's all good, man Not many people seem to be interested in these kind of stories around here (when compared to others). So I'm more than happy to have the discussion. It's already helped clarify the report for new readers.



    I still don't think there was any intentional leaning on the part of Aidan. Just poor wording. Having said that, and for the sake of discussion, Peter's made A LOT of money since becoming CFO of Apple. If anyone wants to look it up, I'm sure he'd rank pretty high in a comparative list for the time span. Not that there's anything wrong with it. Having said all that that, I still think it's a story. Not the greatest story, but not a 'non-story.' Anyway, we felt like writing about it =P





    Best,



    K



    I mean this quite genuinely: AI is easily the best - in the sense of most mature -- place for just about anything Apple-related. And, the tireless efforts of your (I am sure vastly underpaid) crew help to make it happen.



    Don't ever want you all to get the feeling that you're not appreciated......
  • Reply 15 of 19
    wallywally Posts: 211member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheCrow View Post


    Nice post, anantksundaram. AppleInsider seems to be sensationalizing their news of late...



    ,,,,,





  • Reply 16 of 19
    Woah betide anyone in business should seek to make a profit hardly news is it.
  • Reply 17 of 19
    meelashmeelash Posts: 1,045member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Walter Slocombe View Post


    Woah betide anyone in business should seek to make a profit hardly news is it.



    You guys are nuts. I read the AI story and didn't get even the slightest impression whatsoever that AI was accusing Peter Oppenheimer of any improper activity. For some reason you guys got all excited, assuming that something was wrong with him selling stock for profit.



    And this story describes something significant that has happened and also involves Apple, Inc. That classifies it as an Apple news story. A story doesn't have to be a muck-raking expose of evil-doing capitalists in order to qualify as news.
  • Reply 18 of 19
    auguraugur Posts: 34member
    This is exactly why the stock market is a ponzi scheme.



    You have to be crazy to buy stocks. The people on the inside always know what is going on better than you do. People see the stock prices and profits going up, and then they buy in, thinking it is a "good" thing for numbers to rise. But actually, both phenomenon's are terrible. Higher profits means that people are being overcharged. That isn't sustainable, and it creates inflation. Higher stock prices means that the new stock buyers will be giving cash to older stock buyers. Either way you lose, either at the store or at the market.



    Apple makes good products, but the ponzi scheme around it may yet kill the company. The directors take the cash out for themselves, and eventually they will be laying off workers and closing stores. They will resign the board and go home, and everyone else will suffer the consequences.



    There is a reason why planes fly into banks. It is just another average day in America where greed and money manipulation is at full throttle, and nobody can see the elephant in the room.
  • Reply 19 of 19
    willrobwillrob Posts: 203member
    No analysts ,were involved in the rumor linked above. A so called reporter for thestreet.com floated the rumor as if it were fact. The next day he and his boss, Jim Cramer, joked about how many millions were lost by investors because they didn't have sense enough to check the story. Of course if thestreet.com had checked the rumor first the crisis would not have occurred. Cramer's excuse? "We're not reporters. We just put the story out there so investors could make up their own mind."
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