>>The media makes it sound like he bought the shares yesterday, which is absolutely ridiculous
According to the San Jose Mercury News article, Barksdale's 300,000 share purchase was made on June 1. If merger talks are in progress, he definitely would have been involved and known about it before he made the buy. The article follows:
Posted at 8:22 a.m. PDT Wednesday, June 10, 1998
Barksdale keeps promise, buys
Netscape shares
Bloomberg News Service
James Barksdale fulfilled a pledge to raise his stake in Netscape Corp.,
becoming the company's first top executive to buy shares since its initial
public offering.
The 55-year-old chief executive spent $7.3 million on common stock earlier this
month, according to a regulatory filing. At last month's annual meeting,
Barksdale said he would buy an undisclosed number of shares, stating that
current prices were attractive.
Investors recently have shunned once high-flying Netscape's stock as the
Mountain View, California, company has battled Microsoft Corp. for control of
the Internet browser market. Shares have fallen more than 50 percent since last
July.
Barksdale's purchases signal confidence in Netscape's long range viability,
one investor said.
''Any time a key executive makes a huge purchase he is trying to send a
message,'' said Dan Reeve, a managing director at Horsley Bridge Partners, a
San Francisco based money manager that held 214,777 Netscape shares at
March 31. ''Just watching a key executive go into the open market like that and
make a huge bet provides investors with confidence.''
Barksdale's purchases should be viewed more as an effort to reassure
investors and boost the shares rather than as a bullish sign for the company,
said Kris Tuttle, an analyst at the technology research firm SoundView
Financial Group.
''I don't know if Barksdale is necessarily the world's most reliable indicator on
the company's future success,'' Tuttle said. ''Read into it (the stock purchase)
what you will.''
Shares Purchased
According to a Form 4 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission,
Barksdale bought 300,000 Netscape common shares on June 1. The purchases
raised his total stake to 5.1 million shares, which equals 5.2 percent of the
company's outstanding common stock.
Barksdale bought the Netscape stock at $24.27 a share. That's about half the
52-week high of $49.50 that the shares reached last July 16. In December 1995,
shares reached as high as 87.
Barksdale's multimillion-dollar investment came as the executive has taken
other steps that he says are designed to link his compensation to the long-term
interests of Netscape's stockholders. Last year, Barksdale elected to receive a
symbolic annual salary of just $1 and returned an option grant of 300,000
common shares. Barksdale chose to get only $1 in salary again this year.
Barksdale, however, raised far more money selling Netscape shares in 1996 and
1997 than he spent buying shares this year. And his $7.3 million investment in
June represents just a fraction of his total stake, which is valued at more than
$100 million. |
