By tf-lawyer.com Apple CEO Tim Cook has recently initiated a significant sale of Apple stock. Under his latest two-year trading plan, the first batch of shares sold amounts to $50 million, which represents over half of the total cash realized from the previous round of stock sales.
According to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Cook acquired 477,301 shares of Apple stock on October 1 through his existing restricted stock holdings. He followed this by selling 223,986 shares on October 2, generating $50.3 million in cash, with an average sale price of $224.46 per share. Additionally, 253,315 shares remain temporarily withheld by Apple to meet the withholding tax requirements for the restricted stock units (RSUs).
Cook adopted a 10b5-1 trading plan on May 24, which will remain in effect until May 24, 2026. Such trading plans are commonly used by corporate executives and directors to mitigate the potential for insider trading by pre-setting specific conditions for stock transactions, including price, volume, and timing. These sales are executed automatically when the pre-defined criteria are met.
The shares Cook sold were previously held in a trust that he controls, which continues to hold 3.3 million shares of Apple stock.
Apple has not disclosed how many shares Cook plans to sell under this initiative and has chosen not to comment further.
The last time Cook sold shares was on November 28, 2022, when he sold a total of 493,051 shares from April 3, 2023, to April 2, 2024, at an average selling price of $170.40 per share.
On October 10, Apple’s stock price closed down 0.2% at $229.04 per share, which is 34% higher than the average selling price of Cook’s previous share sale.
