IBM CEO is planning to sell 400,000 shares valued at $50,000,000. He has already sold part of the shares last Friday.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/1999908901/ibm_gerstner_l.html or go to Yahoo news, and it's listed under the business section.

-- stockwatcher (stockwatcher@stockwatcherrr.com), August 09, 1999

Answers

Maybe he wants to spend more time with his family ;)

-- Nelson Isada (isada@alaska.net), August 09, 1999.

You call that Off Topic? It is indicators like these that show me that preparations (insurance) are in order.

There will be many more.

-- jack binns (completely@on.topic), August 09, 1999.

the rats are jumping ship. maybe he is going to buy all that cheap gold that is available. There actions will speak louder than words. All we could do is watch the digital world titanic go down, have your life boats at the ready, it will probably be a very long winter. Invest in tangibles to help your family,friends and nieghbors not to starve. Organize your community watches now. We dwell in safety by our nieghbors.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @ conservation .com), August 09, 1999.

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990809/bs/ibm_gerstner_1.html

Monday August 9 5:31 PM ET

IBM's CEO Plans To Sell 400,000 Shares

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Louis Gerstner, the chief executive officer of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news), plans to sell 400,000 common shares of the world's biggest computer maker, a regulatory filing Monday said.

Gerstner, who is also IBM's chairman, acquired the shares, valued at $50 million, after exercising stock options, according to his filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Of the 400,000 shares he plans to sell, he sold 278,000 of them last Friday at $124.80 per share. The shares had an exercise, price of $11.97 per share, meaning Gerstner grossed about $31.3 million, an IBM spokesman said.

Gerstner sold an additional 50,000 shares Monday at $124.04 per share. They too had an exercise price of $11.97 per share, for gross proceeds of about $5.6 million, the spokesman, Rob Wilson, said.

IBM shares closed down 1-9/16 to 122-1/16 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The chairman and CEO also sold a total of 185,000 shares in May for more than $43 million, his SEC filing showed. The May sales were not included in the 400,000 shares to be sold pursuant to today's filing.

Gerstner, in his late 50s, is selling the shares ``as part of a regular program of tax planning and asset diversification which he began last year,'' the IBM spokesman said.

Gerstner's stake in IBM stands at about 8,005,000 shares, consisting of about 7.145 million shares under options and approximately 860,000 shares directly held, the IBM spokesman said.

IBM currently has more than 1.8 billion shares outstanding.

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 09, 1999.

I've been watching 3Com. The Executive Vice President has two planned sales totalling almost 275,000 shares, although he is currently only listed as having about 31,000 shares. I guess that means he is planning to exercise some stock options sometime fairly soon, and then sell them.

Anybody else see any nervous looking big boys hanging on to the railing wondering when to jump?

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), August 09, 1999.

Wouldn't Jay Leno love to have the name and address of the person who buys that last share from IBM's head man.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), August 09, 1999.

Note: When you see a CEO bail out his stock options, you know there's something terrible lurking in the air...saw it happen at Pacific Gas and Electric Company several years ago when their stock took a big dive. The CEO got out just in time..hmmmmmmmm!

-- leftholdingthebag (leftholdingthebag@leftholdingthebag.com), August 10, 1999.

I read a Y2k article in the September issue of Worth that said that a number of companies that have had increased sales because of Y2k preparations may also be affected by Y2k and show it in their stock price next year, including Dell, Compaq, IBM and EDS.

OTOH, if YOU had that many shares of IBM (nice company though it may be), wouldn't you diversify? At the very least, I'd want to spread it around. I'd buy food, entertainment and natural resource stocks along with real estate if I had that kind of money. Plus investments in gold, brass, lead and other precious metals, of course.

-- Greg Lawrence (greg@speakeasy.org), August 10, 1999.

Let's see. 2000-01-01 coming up. Stock market topping out. Economic bubble about to burst. Yep, a good time to exercise those options and cash in the shares.

-- A (A@AisA.com), August 11, 1999.