There are three recent form 4 filings. Mel Simon, a director, sold 5,000 of 70,000 shares on 4/14 for $80/share. No biggie.
Peter Johnson, CEO and President, exercised options for 34,555 shares and sold 15,000 on 4/14 and 4/23 for about $78/share, leaving him with 55,655 shares and remaining options for 393,845 shares. So, the net change was about 20K more shares held at the end of the month than at the beginning. To put it mildly, I feel that he has sufficient remaining incentive to perform. :-)
Bob Jackson, V.P. R&D, exercised options for 3,000 shares and then sold them, retaining 586 shares. However, the true story is told by his remaining options for 144,000 shares. Again, no biggie.
We were warned in this thread, some time ago, that insiders were planning on taking some shares off the table at about $85/share. The opinion was expressed at that time that they deserved a bit of access to the wealth that they had generated. While none of the sales described above fit the criteria that you've seen in Barron's, to me, the small amount of selling relative to the total shares available for exercise/sale and/or sale is encouraging.
The tables in Barron's and elsewhere almost never include options in the picture. In biotech, options are where most accumulated wealth is held. Unexercised, in-the-money options, if included, would often make a sale of 71% actually look like 1%. The tables are therefore usually only of use for alerting you to sales, and the true magnitude has to be dug out of Edgar filings.
There have been many classic "bails" in biotech, such as the old CEO from Cytel and Immunomedics selling. However, there's nothing wrong, IMO, with AGPH insiders collecting a bit of what they're due.
Cheers! Rick |
