Marc Andreessen Sold 73 Percent of His Facebook Stock in the Last Two Weeks
Andreesen is a board member, so under Facebook's insider-trading policy he is required to conduct sales under a Rule 10b5-1 plan [1]. From FB's most recent annual proxy statement [2]: "Certain of our directors and executive officers have adopted written plans, known as Rule 10b5-1 plans, in which they will contract with a broker to buy or sell shares of our common stock on a periodic basis. Under a Rule 10b5-1 plan, a broker executes trades pursuant to parameters established by the director or executive officer when entering into the plan, without further direction from them. The director or executive officer may amend or terminate the plan in specified circumstances. Our executive officers and directors are required to conduct all purchase or sale transactions under a Rule 10b5-1 plan." (Emphasis added.)
"A company making such disclosure [that an insider has adopted a 10b5-1 plan] generally will disclose the existence of a plan but not the specific details." [3]
[1] Form 4 reporting Andreesen's sale: http://investor.fb.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1127602-15-304...
[2] http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/00013268011...
[3] http://media.mofo.com/files/Uploads/Images/FAQ10b51.pdf ("MoFo" is Morrison & Foerster, a leading Bay-Area BigLaw firm.)
Anyone speculating on this should look into the mechanics of 10b51 plans. He made no active decision to sell or not sell.
The sale may have been triggered by a price floor ($100?) that he must've established a very long time ago.
He is probably getting money together for that motor home he has been wanting to buy.
Seriously, he probably wants liquid cash to do what I guess he most enjoys: investing in new companies.
Sorry if this is really off topic, but I think that it is most interesting to understand what people really enjoy in life. I like to ask people what their hobbies are before asking them what they do for a living.
Marc Andreesen strikes me as the kind of guy who likes to be in the game, startup wise.
The impressive thing is that he waited until FB was over $100 to sell. Facebook was faced with a huge uphill battle with Wall Street. Each time they had solid earnings, the stock would go down on fears of young people not using the service or their inability to monetize mobile properly or that they overpaid for Instagram.
Wall Street finally caught on that it is a social network in a league of their own and a company that makes solid decisions, but it took a long time and Marc could have easily sold along the way.
Andreessen stuck through all of that to make it to $100+. It seems like he felt like it was time to cash in. Rightfully so. FB will be just fine moving forward.
Por moi, his Tweetstorms, and his Twitter feed, might be the most educationally beneficial thing I've experienced in my adult life (in addition to Nassim Taleb's Twitter). If you're reading this pmarca: thank you.
Hope he invests in Twitter to keep it alive.
> It’s a ton of money, and it’s not very common for executives to sell at the pace and quantity that Andreessen has been selling these past two week.
Is a member of the board of directors an "executive"? I didn't think that was the case.
I don't think this is all that surprising. Basically you want your wealth in a balanced portfolio of different companies, so that a downturn in a single company's fortune doesn't affect you.
Thus, a big win should be cashed out, otherwise it ends up being too a large a piece of your portfolio.
This certainly catches the eye. Any reason to sell now?
This might have something to do with the Fed raising interest rates, all stocks will take a hit.
Peak Facebook they call it. We already passed that mark long ago.
I bought at 33 and am still holding.