SEPR shareholders have a right to be extremely bitter about this. There is strong suggestive evidence company insiders knew something of this magnitude was on the horizon.
On Sept. 23, 2000, I sent this PM to Peter (since Peter has already noted the insider trading in SEPR, and since this trading now appears to be highly relevant, I feel it is wise discretion to publicize this) :
>>>>>>>>>>
Peter - Each week I screen Insidertrader.com (member services) for possible significant flags. On the insider sell screen that came out today, SEPR appeared - there were 4 insiders sales [the CEO, the CFO, and 2X vice president(s)] that took place between September 5th and 14th involving 560,000+ shares worth over $57,000,000. The cash involved represents the 3rd highest dollar amount in the sales category of all the stocks covered this week [5000+ ?] by this service. Although insider sales are commonly considered much less important than purchases, I consider whatever the CFO to be doing a fairly important sign. The fact that 3 or 4 high level executives sold a lot of shares at the same time is also significant and suggests the selling was not associated with personal or family events. If earnings are due out in the next month or so, this activity *may* (and certainly may not) be a red flag.
A reasonable and calming explanation is that these executives were exercising options on a stock that had performed exceptionally well [the options explanation is indeed the case - here's the Yahoo data biz.yahoo.com]. Still, 560,000+ shares sold in such a short period should invoke some degree of concern - that Yahoo data showing a torrent of sales since 5 Sept. is a bit scary. And note that there are an additional 200,000+ shares filed under form 144 - plan to sell - which means insiders have decided to sell almost 900K shares of the stock in the last 2 weeks....
I will leave to your discretion the placement of this information on the SI SEPR thread.
Best wishes,
Scott
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