Category: Executive Pay

Executive Pay

Three top Amazon execs sell nearly 9,000 shares, but Bezos way out ahead

The trades were all on Monday, according to a series of Securities and Exchange Commission filings this afternoon, after stock markets closed. They were:

But their sales were dwarfed by the 1 million shares founder and CEO Jeff Bezos sold Aug. 2 for $757 million, his SEC filing showed. That brought to $1.4 billion his total sales in the past three months, according to GeekWire. But he still owned 80.9 million shares after that big trade, worth $62 billion.

Jeff Bezos
Bezos

Bezos’s SEC filing said the most recent sale was made under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, which allows company insiders to sell a predetermined amount of stock at a set time, to avoid the appearance of insider trading.

The retailer’s AMZN shares closed today at $764.63, up 59 cents. The three executives sold for prices ranging from $768 to $771.

Amazonpays its top executives far more in stock than cash. See how much they got paid last year and in 2014 in Boulevard’s highest-paid executives databases.

Executive Pay

Kindred’s Zachariah gets $220K in stock with promotion to rehab president
Jason Zachariah
Zachariah

Jason Zachariah received 20,000 Kindred shares yesterday as the hospital and nursing home giant announced his promotion to president of Kindred Rehabilitation Services, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission notice this morning.

The shares are in the form of restricted stock units that vest in equal annual installments over three years starting a year from yesterday. Based on yesterday’s $11.01 closing price, the shares are worth $220,000. Zachariah already owned 20,980. It’s common for executives to get bonuses for big promotions. By vesting the shares over several years, a company encourages the employee to stay and also ties their compensation to the company’s overall performance.

Zachariah replaced Jon Rousseau, who is leaving the company to pursue other interests, Kindred said. Rousseau joined Kindred three years ago and was president of KRS since April 2015.

In a separate filing, Rousseau told the SEC he’d given up 24,900 shares without compensation, a stake he presumably walked away from when he quit; the Form 4 document didn’t explain the transaction, however. Rousseau still had 24,433 shares remaining, the document said.*

Zachariah’s elevation and Rousseau’s departure were effective immediately, the company said. Zachariah started at the Louisville hospital and nursing home giant in 2006.

Kindred employs about 2,200 employees in Louisville; it has about 102,000 employees in total. More about Kindred’s operations.

* (At the time he joined the company, Rousseau told the SEC he’d been awarded 35,000 restricted stock units, which were to vest in equal annual installments over three years by July 30 this year — two weeks ago. Attentive readers will notice a discrepancy in all these figures for Rousseau. Without getting too far into the weeds and boring readers to death, Boulevard notes Rousseau also was awarded 14,000 RSUs when he was promoted to rehab president in spring 2015.)

Executive Pay

Papa John’s COO Ritchie nets $625K in share trade

Steve Ritchie made the trade Aug. 12 with options he exercised that day at a so-called strike price of $26 a share, according to a just-filed Securities and Exchange Commission document. That means he netted about $625,000 after selling the 12,836 shares at prices ranging from $74.37 to $75.08.

John Ritchie
Ritchie

The options vest in three equal annual installments beginning one year from the grant date of Feb. 28, 2013. The company’s PZZA shares closed today at $75, up 35 cents.

Just last week, Ritchie told the SEC he’d sold 988 shares for about $75,000; there were no options involved in that trade.

Ritchie has been the pizza chain’s president and chief operating officer since July 2015. He started at the company as a customer service representative making $5 an hour in 1996.

Executive Pay

As stock hits record high, Schnatter leads four top execs selling thousands of Papa John’s shares

Papa John's exec trades August 2016

Lance Tucker
Tucker

Founder and CEO John Schnatter and the three other senior officers sold the shares over the past week for prices between around $76 and $77 a share, according to new Securities and Exchange Commission documents.

The trades came just as Papa John’s hit a record high of $78.09, pushing the value of Schnatter’s 10.5 million shares above $800 million for the first time.

PZZA closed this afternoon at for $75.15, up 65 cents.

John Ritchie
Ritchie

So-called insider stock sales are an important barometer of where top executives at companies think share prices are headed. But they’re an imperfect measure. Sometimes, executives sell through what’s called SEC Rule 10b5-1 plans. They allow major holders to sell a predetermined number of shares at a predetermined time, a plan often approved in advance by the board of directors to avoid insider-trading accusations.

The Papa John’s filings don’t disclose any reason for the sales, however.

Executive Pay

Reaching a new record high, Schnatter’s Papa John’s stake jumps past $800 million for the first time
John Schnatter
Schnatter

This afternoon, Papa John’s stock soared to a new record closing high of $77.38 a share, up 4.6%, or $3.37, on a better-than-expected second-quarter report. That’s good news for all shareholders (except for the shorts, of course!) — but none more so than founder and CEO John Schnatter. He’s the pizza chain’s single-biggest stockholder, with 10,455,981 shares — 27.6% of all, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents.

Papa John’s shares have staged a huge comeback since hitting a 52-week closing low of $45.50 on Feb. 3. Here’s the value of Schnatter’s stake that day compared to its rising value the day after each of the past three quarterly earnings reports:

$475,747,136

Feb. 3

$623,176,468

Feb. 23

$629,031,817

May 3

$809,083,810

Today

Schnatter, 54, founded Papa John’s in 1984, right after graduating from Ball State University with a business degree. More than 30 years later, it’s now a fast-food goliath with 4,700 restaurants worldwide — including more than 1,200 international ones in 37 countries and territories. It has 750 employees in Louisville, and another 21,000 across the globe. The company went public in 1993. More about Papa John’s.

Executive Pay

Kindred CEO, HR chief sell shares

In Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed today, both executives sold at $12.26 a share:

  • Chief Executive Officer Benjamin Breier, 4,905 shares shares for $60,135. Shares beneficially owned after the trade: 678,452
  • Chief People Officer Stephen Cunanan, 3,511 shares for $43,045. Beneficially owned after: 83,527.

Kindred’s stock closed this afternoon at $11.67 a share, down 4.8%, or 59 cents. The Louisville-based hospital and nursing giant employs 2,200 workers in the city, and 102,000 across the nation. More about Kindred.