(03-20-2018 11:33 AM)VA49er Wrote: (03-20-2018 11:29 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/zucker...op_stories
Quote:Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg saw his net worth decline by about $5 billion Monday, but it could have been worse.
Ahead of Facebook’s worst one-day decline since 2012, prompted by news that data affecting 51.3 million members was improperly shared with a political consulting firm, Zuckerberg had been busy selling stock. So far this year, he has sold nearly 5 million shares.
Disposing of those Facebook shares FB, -4.05% before Monday ended up saving about $40 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings and some arithmetic by MarketWatch. At Monday’s close, the 4.9 million shares Zuckerberg has sold this year under a predetermined plan would be worth $855 million. Zuckerberg made about $900 million selling those shares, according to calculations using average weighted prices reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Seems on the up and up, at least with regard to SEC filings, etc. Is the SEC looking into his sells for some reason?
Well, if you take a closer look at the timeline, it starts to seem a bit less on the up and up.
The breach happened in 2014.
By late 2015 Facebook knew about the severity of the breach internally but did and said nothing publicly at that time.
In December of 2015 Mark suddenly announced he wanted to sell 'billions of dollars' worth stock for his 'charity' work. At this point there was no external knowledge outside Facebook of the breach. So to the outside world, this seemed like no big deal. Hindsight though is different. He had just gotten information which could potentially destroy Facebook's profitability if it got out and enough people fled. His reaction? Try to exfiltrate as much wealth as he can into a new bucket which can't be touched.
However even in spite of his announcement in 2015, he did nothing on that front until late 2017.
In Sept 2017 he files to the SEC that he's going to sell over the next 18 months.
In March of 2018 he starts selling.
A few days later the breach information becomes public, and the value of Facebook stock drops rapidly.
There's a couple things here.
1) It's curious that an announcement of 'charity' work is made right after you internally learn of a massive data breach that could destroy trust in your entire company.
2) Even though you announced that charity work... you do nothing on that front for almost two years? It doesn't take you two years to file an SEC form. His attorney's could have done it in a day. This is typical action to make two events not look linked. But the simple fact is... if they were not linked there would have been zero reason for such a delay. Honestly I wouldn't doubt it if his Lawyers instructed him to wait to file the forms so the two would appear to not be causally linked like the announcement now in hindsight appears to be.
3) The SEC form filed, mentioned selling stock over an 18 month period. The length of time is normal so that selling stock in a block does not cause a slump. However even after filing this and stating 18 months... Zucker lets 1/3rd of his time go by with no movement.
4) No one could have expected the result of the Mueller investigation. No one could have predicted would have ended up where it is. So all of a sudden the leak becoming public is inevitable. Days before the leak becomes public knowledge... he starts dumping stock.
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