This is old news, but in light of recent events, worth reviewing. - Herb
IPod's Popularity a Boon to Synaptics
By Dan Lee
San Jose Mercury News
MacNewsWorld
12/23/04 5:00 AM PT
Among those with the biggest stock-sale gains, Synaptics Vice President of Operations William Stacy exercised options to buy 40,045 company shares for prices ranging from $6 to $9.96 each November 23, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The same day he sold those shares for prices ranging from $36 to $36.03 each, for a gain of $1.1 million.
Executives at Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) aren't the only insiders cashing in on the company's hot-selling iPod music player.
Just ask executives at Synaptics, the San Jose maker of electronic instruments that turns out iPod's scroll wheel.
Eight Synaptics insiders sold a combined US$10.64 million in company stock last month as the company's stock rose to a 52-week high. The stock has gained 132 percent in the past 12 months.
Biggest Gainers
Among those with the biggest gains, Synaptics Vice President of Operations William Stacy exercised options to buy 40,045 company shares for prices ranging from $6 to $9.96 each November 23, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The same day he sold those shares for prices ranging from $36 to $36.03 each, for a gain of $1.1 million.
The sales were the first under an automatic-sales plan Stacy adopted last month. Such plans, under the SEC's 10b5-1 rule, allow insiders to avoid questions over the timing of their sales by setting up a plan to sell a predetermined amount of shares over a set period of time.
"It's easy for me just to put a 10b5-1 in place, and whenever it goes it goes," he said, adding that before the plan, he could sell only during the middle four weeks of a quarter.
Stacy owns a single Synaptics share, with the bulk of his holdings in the form of options to buy company stock. "When we went public, every employee got one share," he said. "I've got it on my wall."
Largest Transaction
Co-founder and Chairman Federico Faggin -- co-inventor of the world's first microprocessor -- had the largest transaction among the Synaptics insiders last month, gaining $2.43 million from exercising options to buy and then selling 72,187 shares November 5.
Faggin owned 974,558 company shares after the latest moves, according to an SEC filing. According to the company's latest proxy, as of September 1, he also held more than 210,000 exercisable options to buy Synaptics shares.
November's $10.64 million insider sales total was the highest monthly insider sum since the company went public in January 2002, according to Thomson Financial. Synaptics insiders sold a combined $5.43 million in October. In the first nine months of 2004, company insiders sold a combined $9.32 million.
Synaptics shares closed at $32.77 last Friday, down from a 52-week high of $40 on November 24.
In October, the company reported strong first-quarter earnings and expected "continued strong demand for portable digital music players" in the current period. The company's other products include touch pads and pointing sticks for laptop computers.
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