Likewise, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer disclosed that he sold all but 13,173 of the 250,000 shares he received the day before via the vesting of restricted stock units. His sales, which likewise were under a 10b5-1 trading plan, raised proceeds of about $33 million. (I would note that the filing indicates that 113,659 of the shares were withheld by Apple “to satisfy statutory withholding requirements on the vesting of restricted stock units.”)
Jonathan Ive, SVP for industrial design, received 200,000 shares via RSUs, and has since sold almost all of them; he had 90,784 shares withheld for statutory reasons. Five other Apple execs received RSU grants that day as well; none show any open market sales, though all had some shares withheld for the same regulatory reasons.
All that said, I would not over-interpret the large sales by Cook and Oppenheimer; under the selling plans, the sales were going to take place no matter what the stock price was at the time. Interesting? Yes. An indicator of how the March quarter is going? No.
Apple today is down $3.40, or 2.3%, at $141.66.
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Turned out to be a bear trap.
Three Apple executives this week combined to cash in on over $75 million in restricted stock units that had vested, while several others settled with Uncle Sam.
With the exception of Apple chief executive Steve Jobs and newly appointed General Counsel Daniel Cooperman, each member of Apple's executive team was forced this week to address restricted stock units that had recently vested and were set to expire, regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show.
Senior Vice President of Retail Ron Johnson, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet, and Senior Vice President of Applications Sina Tamaddon each converted 250,000 restricted stock units to shares.
In order to meet their tax obligations on those shares, each exec decided to net-share settle, or surrender, 113,659 shares at $139.53 a piece to cover those costs. They each retained the remaining 136,341 shares.
Apple's Senior Vice President iPod Division Tony Fadell made a similar move on 100,000 restricted share units, converting them to stock, then disposing of 45,750 at $139.53 to pay his taxes. He retained the remaining 54,250 shares.
Meanwhile, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer and Senior Vice President Industrial Design Jonathan Ive saw 250,000 and 200,000 restricted stock units vest, respectively, which they then converted to shares. Both execs used a portion of those shares to pay the tax man, but then sold the remaining shares in keeping with prearranged stock-trading plans.
Oppenheimer disposed of 136,341 shares on the open market at prices between $138.74 and $139.79 for a net gain of approximately $19 million, while Ive sold 109,216 shares at prices between $138 and $140 for a profit of $15.2 million.
Finally, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook converted 300,000 vested stock units to shares and then sold all of them on the open market in following a prearranged stock-trading plan, at prices between $133.79 and $140.76 per share.
Cook's net profit totaled nearly $41 million before taxes.
From Apple Insider (march 24 2006): "Apple Computer chief executive Steve Jobs this month used over 4.5M of the 10M restricted shares owed to him by the company to pay income and other employment taxes applicable to those shares, AppleInsider has discovered.
He did not sell any of his stake in the company.
In order to meet his tax obligations on the 10M restricted shares, which vested this month, Jobs elected to net-share settle -- essentially allowing Apple to withhold and pay to authorities the portion of the 10M shares that would meet his tax payment requirements."
www.appleinsider.com/a...
BUT THOSE DAYS ARE OVER NOW!
With the release of Vista SP1 we have corrected all of the perceived mistakes, moved menus around, renamed commands, updated background images, added more drivers and lots of other stuff that the preservers were perceiving! So now there is no reason whatsoever to wait or buy some other computer!
The free ride is over now Stevey-boy! Sure your sales tripled in the last year, but you only tripled 2.5% to whatever that is now. Vista is the cat's meow baby! Our little slip-up may have bought your little candy-coated sissy-boy oddly-shaped devices company a year or two more until your certain bankruptcy, but it will come!
If you don't believe me look at their stock! Even the Apple top executives are getting out while the gett'ns good!