Roger, I agree that on fundamentals VTSS is an extraordinary company. No argument there. It also has extraordinarily valuation and extraordinary insider-selling compared to most other companies. As I said in an earlier post, during the week ending May 16, '97, the Chairman, President, CFO and another officer sold $3,911,080 worth of stock (130,650 shares) at an average price of about $29. Prior to that, in April, only one officer sold 10,000 shares at about $33. One officer selling is obviously insignificant. The Chairman, Pres, CFO, etc, combined with a very high level of 144 (intent to sell) filings by management, might be significant and might say something about insider opinion on the company's valuation. Indeed, the 144 filings continue, two filings on Monday of this week and two more on Thursday. As for the financial planning argument, the Pierre Lamond, the Chairman, is a general partner in Sequoia Capital, a well-known venture capital group which has financed up-and-coming little companies like Cisco Systems. I doubt Vitesse is a significant enough portion of Mr. Lamond's personal portfolio to worry overmuch about selling just to diversify, though valuation might be a good reason.
I'll have to wait until tomorrow to dig out the actual sales from this week. I'll let you know.
Best,
Steve |
