Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and number two at the social media giant, has sold 2.4 million shares in the company at around $38 a share for a total of around $91 million.
The news was reported in a filing on late Friday.
According to a note in New York Magazine, the stock finally returned to its IPO price of $38 last week. When it did, it triggered the sale of the Facebook stock under Sandberg’s automated trading plan.
But don’t worry about Sheryl Sandberg. The sale was for five percent of her holdings, so she’s got plenty left. The current value of her Facebook stock is still around one billion dollars.
CNN Money noted that the automated pre-arranged trading plan for her Facebook stock is not under Sandberg’s control. In that way, she can avoid even the appearance of insider trading.
The price point that triggered the sale hit on Wednesday. It’s quite a comeback from Facebook’s low of $17.55 a share in September.
Although the stock has been struggling for months, in July the company reported strong revenues that greatly exceeded the analysts’ predictions. As a result, interest in Facebook stock soared — and the price went up by 50 percent in just one month.
Sandberg may have enjoyed a different kind of good fortune earlier this summer.
According to her own Facebook page, she planned to be on the Asiana flight that crashed at San Francisco airport in early July. But the frugal billionaire decided to buy her family’s tickets with frequent flyer miles instead, so she ended up on a United Flight that landed a short time earlier.
Her Facebook post after the crash said, “Thank you to everyone who is reaching out – and sorry if we worried anyone. Serious moment to give thanks.”
I think it’s safe to say that with the new Facebook stock sale, Sheryl Sandberg has 91 million more reasons to give thanks.
[Sheryl Sandberg photo credit: Financial Times photos via photopin cc ]