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Microsoft Executive, Robbie Bach: A Master Of Bad Timing

Aug. 16, 2007 5:50 AM ETMSFT, SONY, NTDOY1 Comment
David Hunter profile picture
David Hunter
31 Followers

There was a bit of a kerfuffle in July when it was revealed that Microsoft (MSFT) Entertainment and Division President Robbie Bach sold $6.2 million in Microsoft shares in the run-up to the announcement of the billion dollar band-aid for defective Xbox 360 units.

Executives often use scheduled stock sales to avoid any appearance of insider trading and still pick up some walking around money, but Bach’s sales were unscheduled. Now it turns out he actually sold an additional $3 million worth of shares that somehow fell through an insider sale reporting crack:

Microsoft Corp. executive Robbie Bach sold $3 million more in company stock during the period leading up to an announcement about a costly flaw in its Xbox video game console than previously reported, according to a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Microsoft spokesman Eric Hollreiser said the additional $3 million in sales were not registered in a timely manner with the SEC “as the result of an administrative error.”

Normally, a company must register insider sales with the SEC within two days of the transaction. Hollreiser said Microsoft has followed the procedures required of late-filers and is now in full compliance.

As with the other transactions during the period in question, Hollreiser said the recently registered stock sales were unrelated to the Xbox repair announcement. None of the transactions were part of a scheduled plan of regular sales for Bach, Hollreiser said.

At the time of Microsoft’s July 5 announcement, Bach said that, “In the last couple of months, we started to see significant increases in repair requests … and significant attention from people” regarding an Xbox flaw known as “the red ring of death.”

Whether there will be regulatory scrutiny of this juxtaposition of events is up to the SEC, but one

This article was written by

David Hunter profile picture
31 Followers
David Hunter is a contributor for Seeking Alpha.

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Comments (1)

T
"All of which promises to make the shareholders much more unhappy than Mr. Bach’s stock sales."

Hope none of you are still holding MSFT stock. Sure, they make billions a quarter but consider: not a single one of their products rates as even "pretty good" quality-wise. XBox, maybe their best effort ever, is a big red mark on their books. MSFT is like FMC, but with less flexible management.
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