New WorldCom CEO Has Sold $90 Million In Co Stock As Vice Chair
Tuesday April 30, 10:25 pm Eastern Time
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- John Sidgmore, the newly appointed chief executive of WorldCom Inc. (NasdaqNM: WCOM - news) (WCOM), has sold at least $90 million in the company's stock since he became vice chairman of the board in 1996, according to filings.
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Sidgmore had about 2.3 million WorldCom Group shares as of April 5 , according to the company's proxy statement. He also had 91,648 shares of MCI Group (MCIT), the stock that tracks the company's consumer long-distance business.
He told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday morning he has sold about a third of the stake he received upon joining WorldCom. He has also sold shares acquired through stock options. Sidgmore was chief executive of UUNet, formerly a unit of MFS, which was acquired by WorldCom.
His largest payout came on June 4, 1999 , when he exercised options to buy 400, 000 shares at $26 apiece, then sold them at $88.39 apiece, for a net gain of about $25 million.
His last major sale was 24,503 shares for $441,054 last May, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. In all, Sidgmore has sold just under 1.7 million WorldCom shares, according to filings.
As of April 5 , Sidgmore also had options to purchase another 3.25 million shares, according to the proxy statement.
WorldCom's stock has plummeted since it reached a split-adjusted high of about $65 a share in the middle of 1999. Shares ended Tuesday's session at $2.48, down 86% over the last year.
Sidgmore, 51, replaced former Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers, who resigned Monday amid controversy surrounding a massive personal loan from the company and investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission into the loan and the company's accounting. Sidgmore built UUNet from a scrappy company with $10 million in annual revenue in 1994 into one of the world's largest Internet backbone companies.
-Christine Nuzum; Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5172; christine.nuzum@
dowjones.com
(This story was originally published by Dow Jones Newswires)
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