Friday, August 4, 2006

United executives dump company stock

Eight executives of UAL Corp., United Airlines parent company, dumped thousands of shares of stock on Thursday totaling about $2.9 million. UAL President and Chief Executive Officer Glen Tilton sold about 40,000 shares for about $980,000.

The sale comes after the company announced certain officers established pre-arranged personal stock trading plans with a brokerage firm under Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Sales under this plan have the effect of spreading stock trades over an extended period of time to reduce the market impact.

Does a $2.9 million one day sale sound like a minimal impact to you?

The individuals participating in the stock trading plans will sell shares to pay taxes due on stock grants made to officers as part of the company's ongoing long-term incentive plans, as well as for other purposes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The $2.9 million sale had a minimal impact. Just look at the chart. Tilton sold 40,000 shares on a day when almost 1.9 million shares traded, which was an average day for UAUA.

There are some real issues here however. One is executive compensation. Another is the lack of executive ownership of a company. Too often, in fact almost always, the management team of a public company does not invest a significant amount of their own money. Consequently they operate the company for their own benefit instead of the benefit of all of the stakeholders. Private companies have their own issues, but at least they have management that cares about the success of the company.