Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman has sold off about 900,000 shares of the company, according to regulatory filings. Executives of major companies are required to report when they sell shares of their companies.
According to the filing, the Ebersman Family Trust UA transfored 1.4 million shares of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s class-A common stock to Ebersman himself. At this point, the trust now owns almost 319,000 shares. Ebersman reportedly then sold almost 500,000 shares at around $46 each and more than 400,000 additional shares for around $47 a share. He raked in around $43 million in selling those shares.
Currently Ebersman himself holds about 651,000 shares of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s common shares. A spokesperson for the social network told The Wall Street Journal that Ebersman’s sale of shares was part of his pre-arranged selling plan. The spokesperson also said that those shares were about 8.5% of his equity in Facebook.
Shares of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) have been tearing it up on Wall Street since the company’s positive earnings report earlier this year. Ebersman isn’t the only executive at the social network to sell off shares. Several executive pre-arranged plans were triggered months ago when the company’s shares approached and then passed their opening day price. So far this year, Ebersman has sold a total of almost 2 million shares. Prior to his share sales this week, he had sold about 901,000 shares for about $30 million, according to Thomson Reuters.
It isn’t uncommon for executives to sell shares in their company, especially when it comes to one like Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) where the stock spent almost the first year of its life on the stock exchange significantly lower than where it opened. It also makes sense because many executives are awarded shares which vest over time, so some simply start selling after a new set of shares vest.
