Insiders Silver Lake, Thoma Bravo traded $286M of SolarWinds stock six days before security breach made news

• Former SEC enforcement official Jacob Frenkel tells The Washington Post that the $286M in SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) stock trades will likely trigger an inside trading investigation.
• Frenkel: "Of course the SEC is going to look into that. Large trades in advance of a major announcement, then an announcement: That is a formula for an insider trading investigation."
• Frenkel speculates that a potential investigation could take up to a year as investigators determine if insiders traded on news that "would be important to a reasonable investor."
• On December 7, Silver Lake sold $158M of SolarWinds shares and Thoma Bravo offloaded $128M. The date was six days before news broke about the SolarWinds security breach that allowed hackers to access U.S. federal agencies.
• The two firms own 70% of SolarWinds and sit in six of the board seats. The recent share sales are the largest from the investors since SolarWinds went public two years ago.
• Representatives for Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo tell The Post the sales were a "private placement" with an institutional investor and the firms weren't aware of the cyberattack before entering into the deal.
• SolarWinds shares are currently up 1.6% to $18.36 but are down 23.8% in the past week.
• Previously: Investigation underway to determine extent of SolarWinds espionage attack (Dec. 15 2020)