Three Facebook executives sell stock after lockout

COO Sheryl Sandberg nets $7.4 million

Earlier this week, Facebook’s second lockout ended, and 230 million shares of the company’s employee stock were allowed to be sold. Facebook’s stock price dropped 4% after the shares were released, indicating perhaps that there had been insiders selling shares.

Now, some details are starting to roll in about which Facebook employees cashed in their stock, and how much they made.

COO Sheryl Sandberg, General Counsel Ted Ullyot, and Chief Account Officer David Spillane all sold at least a portion of their shares, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sandberg sold around 353,000 shares. 13,392 shares were sold at $20.79, and the other 339,512 were sold at $21.09 a share, netting her $7.4 million. Given that she still owns around 20 million Facebook shares, the amount that Sandberg sold off was relatively small, less than 2%, even though she sold the most shares of all three executives.

Ullyot sold a total of 149,075 shares. He sold 142,375 of the shares at $20.10, and the other 6,700 at $21.14, bringing it to a total of $3.13 million. Ullyot still owned another 1.27 million shares.

Spillane sold 256,000 of his 863,000 shares. Selling them at $21.04, he netted $5.4 million total.

In October, in advance of the lockup period ending, Sandberb, Ullyot, Spillane, along with three other Facebook executives, marketing VP David Fischer, VP of engineering Mike Schroepfer, and CFO David Ebersman, all filed forms with the SEC to convert their restricted stock units into class-B shares. In all, more than 45 million shares were converted.

The lockup was originally set to expire on Monday, but was delayed due to the New York Stock Exchange staying closed for two days due to the damage done to New York City by Hurricane Sandy. 

While we are now finding out that some of Facebook’s executives sold a portion of their shares, there is one executive that has made it absolutely clear that he is not going to be selling.

According to an 8-K filed in September with the SEC, Mark Zuckerberg will not be selling his Facebook shares for at least a year.

Zuckerberg holds roughly 444 million shares of Class B common stock as well as 60 million shares of Class B common stock issuable upon the exercise of an option.

Two Facebook directors, Marc Andreessen and Donald Graham, also announced that would be selling off some personal stock to pay their RSU tax bill, but that they will not be selling off any shares beyond that.

Facebook’s first lockout

Over 271 million shares were freed to be sold by executives and investors in August and, as a result, the stock fell to $20.17, its lowest levels yet at the time, down to nearly 50% of its IPO price.

At least one prominent Facebook investor sold off their stock after the first lockout ended: Peter Thiel, sold off over 20 million shares of Facebook stock at prices between $19.69 and $20.70, netting him roughly $406 million.

Thiel had actually sold off his stock months before, using a rule that allows executives and directors in a company to sell their stock before they have any inside knowledge so that they cannot be accused of insider trading.

The next Facebook lockup period ends on November 14, when 800 million shares will be freed.

Facebook ended trading Friday at $21.18 a share, down 0.14%.

(Image source: https://www.in.com)