this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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[–] AlmightySnoo 122 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

It's a low amount though (2000*36=€72k). What is more concerning is his 50,610 shares that he sold in total in the past year, as now that is a fairly big amount if he planned this move many months ago.

To be fair, these guys are much more suspicious:

Chief among them being Tomer Bar-Zeev, Unity’s president of growth, who sold 37,500 shares on September 1 for roughly $1,406,250, and board director Shlomo Dovrat, who sold 68,454 shares on August 30 for around $2,576,608.

EDIT:

Yeah, nothing really unusual in Riccitiello's trades. He may be an asshole but that's no reason to immediately accuse him of insider trading for a lousy $77.15k worth of shares given that he already has a pattern of selling way bigger amounts:

EDIT 2:

Here's Riccitiello's filing for that trade: https://www.secform4.com/filings/1810806/0001810806-23-000163.htm

Read in particular this part:

( 2 )The sales reported on this Form 4 were effected pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted by the Reporting Person on May 19, 2023.

That's not insider trading. That's a pre-planned trade (see Investopedia's entry about Rule 10b5-1) that would have been executed no matter what.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago

I’m glad to see some light being shined on the taint rather than it all on the asshole.

[–] Copernican 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah, 2000 is nothing compared to the 50k shares he sold already. I think the bigger data point is probably how many shares does he own in total. It's not uncommon to diversity and minimize some exposure to one company. Give stock is a major compensation structure for ceo's, it makes sense they they liquidate it at periodically. I'm curious is September 1 is a vesting day or something for stock awards.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It can be a pre-planned trade. However they also could have waited for the shares to be sold then make the announcement.

Who knows. I'm not here as a judge.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

never found the trades themselves suspicious (scheduled vesting) but the timing of their announcement, which JR had complete control over, is a bit fucky. Consider they edited the wiki in mid June. Then wait two months to announce a huge policy change, right after everyone that was getting out had already gotten gone.