With reporting season coming to a close, the blackout period is now being lifted across a number of companies.
Blackout periods occur in the lead up to earnings releases in order to prevent insiders from acting on privileged information.
With the blackout period now over, management and board members are free to buy and sell shares on market.
Below we detail four executives who sold shares this week.
1. Dicker Data Ltd (ASX: DDR)
The Dicker Data share price tanked 20% after the founder, Chief Executive and Chairman David Dicker sold 2.74 million shares.
It led to Dicker needing to update the market on why he sold shares and what the proceeds would be used for.
Turns out he just wants to build a fast car, buy a private jet and trade the US market.
Dicker still owns 33.6% of the company and has no plans on going anywhere in the near term.
2. Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW)
CEO Brad Banducci sold 140,000 shares netting himself $5.8 million after his share rights were vested.
Banducci still owns 365,729 shares equal to about $14.7 million, a meaningful shareholding for an ASX 20 CEO.
3. Dusk Group Ltd (ASX: DSK)
CEO and Managing Director of Dusk, Peter King has offloaded 114,941 shares netting himself $350,629.
The sale was equal to about 5% of King’s holdings. He still holds 2,160,059 shares in the company in addition to 450,000 options.
King noted he does not intend to sell down any further shares until the release of Dusk’s half-year result in February 2022.
The Dusk share price is up over 50% since its $2 IPO price in October last year. Shares are currently trading at $3.07.
4. Macquarie Telecom Group Ltd (ASX: MAQ)
Co-founders of Macquarie Telecom, Aidan and David Tudehope sold a decent chunk of shares respectively.
Aidan is currently the Chief Executive, while David is the Managing Director of Hosting, Cloud & Government and Data Centres.
Both sold 657,000 securities netting themselves a cool $49.6 million each.
The brothers remain significant shareholders in the business, with Aidan now holding 11,000,990 shares and David 11,001,123.
The pairs’ last director interest was back in November 2018. Since then, the Macquarie Telecom share price has rocketed 250% to $78.54 after the company delivered on its data centre rollout strategy.
A cautionary note
Keep in mind, executives sell shares for a number of reasons such as tax liabilities or diversifying financial interests or building fast cars.
It does not necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the underlying business.
In the case of the four businesses discussed, all of them have seen their share prices perform strongly.
Shareholders should not let the selling change the original reasons why they bought shares.
