Apple COO sells $30 million in stock after shares gain 22% over first quarter
By Emily Bary
Apple executive's trading plan usually executes stock sales shortly after restricted units vest, but not this latest time
Apple Inc. Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams sold $30 million in stock last week in what one expert deemed an "opportunistic" move by the longtime Apple executive.
Williams sold 187,730 shares of Apple (AAPL) at an average price of $159.76 on March 22, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission released Friday.
His sale was made in conjunction with a 10b5-1 trading plan, which lets executives and other company insiders arrange for stock sales to take place under certain conditions like timing and pricing. Williams' plan was adopted Nov. 29, 2021, and modified Feb. 16, 2023.
Because sales made under trading plans take place under predetermined conditions, they don't always send useful signals to the investment community, but sometimes they do. Williams' sale struck VerityData research director Ben Silverman as "a negative valuation data point," he wrote in a report to clients, because Williams "deviated from his well-established behavior of selling at the time of a restricted stock vesting and in doing so sold at a targeted price."
He did sell shares obtained from his latest vesting, but those restricted units vested at the beginning of October, when Apple's stock was trading near $138.
"The message here is that he thought stock was undervalued previously," Silverman told MarketWatch. "He held out, which was smart, and now it gives us an idea of where's he's comfortable" selling.
Williams has two large stock vestings annually--early in April and October--and he typically sells shortly after the units vest. That he didn't sell last October implies that at the time of that vesting "the stock was below a minimum sale price threshold employed by Williams, and that the amendment to the 10b5-1 plan in February involved either lowering that threshold or installing a trigger price," Silverman said in his report. "That's a change in behavior and it's an opportunistic one."
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The sale at recent levels doesn't necessarily suggest Williams thinks Apple's shares are overvalued, Silverman told MarketWatch, but it rather suggests they may be fairly valued.
Apple didn't respond to a MarketWatch request for comment on the stock sale or what was changed in the February modification to Williams' 10b5-1 plan.
Williams still owns a stake of 489,816 Apple shares, worth nearly $80 million based on current levels.
Apple shares are up about 22% so far in 2023, as were they at the close of trading March 21, the last full session before Williams began selling stock.
-Emily Bary
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March 27, 2023 15:40 ET (19:40 GMT)
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