In what appears to be a routine exercise of stock options, six EMC executives, including five executive vice presidents, sold shares of company stock worth more than $25 million on Friday, SEC documents registered yesterday reveal. In addition, EMC chief executive officer Joe Tucci entered into a pre-arranged trading plan to exercise a small amount of his shares.
The executives who exercised their options and cumulatively sold 1.3 million shares of Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE: EMC) include: EVP Arthur W. Coviello Jr., who is also president of RSA, the company’s security division (125,000 shares); EVP and general counsel Paul Dacier (221,135 shares); David Donatelli, EVP of storage product operations (300,000 shares); EVP and chief development officer Mark Lewis (200,000 shares); senior vice president and chief accounting officer Mark Link (315,267 shares); and EVP of human resources John Mollen (150,000 shares).
Although the sales seemed to be routine, it was a good time to cash in. At least partly riding a bump provided by the recent IPO of its VMware subsidiary, EMC has seen its stock rise nearly 50 percent from March, when it was trading under $13 a share. The executives all cashed in their shares at an average price of between $19.48 and $19.95 per share. The filings can be found here.
The form filed with the SEC on behalf of Tucci noted that the CEO was eligible to sell up to 440,000 shares during the remainder of the current quarter and another 400,000 shares during the fourth quarter of 2007. However, as of this afternoon there was no indication he had sold any shares. The filing noted that the CEO had last chosen to exercise options and sell EMC shares in January of 2004.
As of 4:00 pm today, EMC stock was trading at $19.09, down 56 cents.
