Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos sold the largest number of Amazon shares in 3 years selling 1 million shares during the third quarter.
The sale reduced Jeff Bezos’s ownership stake in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by less than 1% to 85 million shares.
Interestingly, Jeff Bezos sold 1 million shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) for $306.1 million in early August. In both the cases, the sales were accomplished with a 10b5-1 plan, which is structured in advance and permits insiders to distance themselves from their activity. Some wonder whether he has embarked on a patterned selling as in August too he sold at the beginning on the first day of the second month of the quarter.
In a Form 4 filed on Monday, Jeff Bezos reported that he cashed out of exactly 1 million shares. Brian Solomon of Forbes feels the net gain after taxes should be just over $270 million. His recent sales represent Jeff Bezos’s largest divestment listed in a single Form 4 since 2010 and comes as Amazon’s share price is touching a record $350. His current worth is estimated at about $33 billion.
Jeff Bezos bought Washington Post
Earlier in August, Jeff Bezos announced his intention to buy The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO) by paying $250 million for the newspaper and its affiliated publications. Bezos himself was fronting the cash and would become the sole owner of the company after the transaction closes. Jeff Bezos’s move to acquire The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO) came as a big surprise to most people, as the newspaper is not immune to the problems faced by the newspaper industry as a whole.
Since 2004, the CEO sold nearly 20 million shares totaling $2.4 billion.
According to Forbes, the recent sale of 1 million shares along with stock sales scattered through earlier parts of 2013 would push Bezos’s total take-home haul to over $500 million. This would help fund his growing list of extracurricular pursuits including funneling money into Blue Origin, a West Texas-based rocket-development outfit. The amount would also go to fund the 10,000 year clock built 500 feet under a Texas mountain. The recent sales would also help him pursue his small interest in Business Insider and investment in 3D printer company MakerBot before it was sold for over $400 million in June 2013.
