Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hmmm.
Is that a significant amount of shares?
I'm not well educated on these things.
I hope they're gonna be alright, even if it would mean I was right about their strategy being stupid.

He took a beating on that sell.
Its a significant amount, and he lost out on the sell. (Should have sat on it at least until Christmas.)

How do you know he took a beating? Do you know what he bought them for?

Go over and look at the stock. Doesn't matter WHAT you bought it for. You sell when its high, buy when its low. When you sell like that, your trying to get rid of a dog.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=GAW.L
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=GAW.L&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=


This is what the history looks like.

Grot - your links do not answer Mauleed's question.  How do you know if he took a beating?  Stewart may have had options from the company to buy it at a much lower prices (ie: 50p)?  I have not seen any of that information available that leans one way or the other.  The coverage on that stock is poor.  Plus since he is probably considered an insider, they are required to schedule trades in advance.  There are a lot of factors that are not known here.

For a perfect example of this, check out the insider transactions for Martin Marietta Materials.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=MLM

Cashing in of the stock options is usually, not always, a precursor to leaving an organization. I have no idea how it works at GW but in many cases certain agreements require you to hold the stocks for a period of time before being allowed to sell. It's not uncommon for execs with such large holdings to be prohibited from selling while with the company. Other times it's based on percentages. Such sell-offs are never a good thing. The rats... the ship sinking... not far off the mark. It's the kind of thing that the boys at ENRON got in so much trouble for.

-beefheart

I'm sure it's just like that.

Posted By Osbad on 04/27/2007 1:13 AM

 

Posted By beefHeart on 04/27/2007 4:31 AM
Cashing in of the stock options is usually, not always, a precursor to leaving an organization. I have no idea how it works at GW but in many cases certain agreements require you to hold the stocks for a period of time before being allowed to sell. It's not uncommon for execs with such large holdings to be prohibited from selling while with the company. Other times it's based on percentages. Such sell-offs are never a good thing. The rats... the ship sinking... not far off the mark. It's the kind of thing that the boys at ENRON got in so much trouble for.

-beefheart

This could not be farther from the truth.  An employee's shares of company stock are considered PART of his total compensation package.  One is SUPPOSED to sell them. 

I'm guessing the U.S. and Great Britain have different laws concerning insider trading.

The company may be doing poorly, but I couldn't tell you whether or not such a sell off is illegal or not, even if the seller has inside information. It will be interesting to see the annual financial report.

You also don't know his situation. I get stock options at the company I work for. I've sold them, on occassion, because I needed to buy a new army, rather than because the stock was at an all-time high.

Ok, well, maybe not to buy a whole new army, but almost all of the infantry models.

Point is you have no idea what's going on. He could be involved in a divorce and needs to liquidate assets to cover that.

I'm taking it as likely bad news for the reason that it is unlikely that he was *required* to sell them. I can't imagine any circumstances where an individual Director would be required to sell some (not all) of his personal share holding in his employer's company. That being the case, it is almost certain therefore that a Senior Director of GW chose to sell around £2M of stock in his own company.

There are only really 2 reasons why anyone would sell a long term investment like Employees' shares so lets speculate about them:

1/ He just needed the cash in a hurry. This implies that he expects the share price to go down in the short to medium term. If he expected the price to rise in the short to medium term he could have taken a loan out, secured on the shares, nad paid it off when the share price rose to a better level. Why take £2M if £3M was on the cards? Clearly £3M wasn't on the cards then... WHich kind of implies he expects the share price to go down in the short to medium term.  I mean its not worth taking out a loan to hedge a couple of hundred quid's worth of shares, but for a couple of million?  You don't liquidate that sort of investment without really knowing what you are doing surely?

2/ He didn't need the cash in a hurry, and this was the best opportunity to realise his investment he thought he was likely to have in the forseeable future. Well that is REALLY BAD news for the share price. As a Director he will be privy to information on how the company is performing. GW have already issued a profit warning in January which wiped 11% off their share price overnight. Last year the share price recovered when the final results were bad, but not as disastrous as the market had feared they would be. That happened in late July 2006. A Director should know whether such an outcome was likely to recur this year. The fact that he took the sale rather than hung on for a couple of months would indicate that he thinks this isn't likely. So shares are going to pootle around at 350p or less for the foreseeable future. Or maybe collapse altogether!

3/ He doesn't know what he's doing...

Why does part of me fear option number 3 most of all?

All of course speculation, but I can't spot any floors in the logic. Do any of you regular wheeler-dealers know any better? The market clearly thinks its bad news as the share price has fallen a further 8% this month.

It could also be a programmed sell-off. If securities law in the UK is anything like the US (and I bet they're fairly close) Directors, Executives and the like have very, very few days out of the year which they are allowed to trade any options they own for said company due to laws designed to thwart insider trading. As these trading windows often do not occur at the most favorable time to sell high or buy low, a common technique is to program a pre-planned sale/buy that is triggered on a certain date or when the shares reach a certain price (within limits). I'm not saying this is what did (or didn't) happen, but it's a possibility. Could be random, could be that some rats just plan ahead better than others.

Posted By nyarlathotep667 on 04/27/2007 6:36 AM
It could also be a programmed sell-off. If securities law in the UK is anything like the US (and I bet they're fairly close) Directors, Executives and the like have very, very few days out of the year which they are allowed to trade any options they own for said company due to laws designed to thwart insider trading. As these trading windows often do not occur at the most favorable time to sell high or buy low, a common technique is to program a pre-planned sale/buy that is triggered on a certain date or when the shares reach a certain price (within limits). I'm not saying this is what did (or didn't) happen, but it's a possibility. Could be random, could be that some rats just plan ahead better than others.

You are pretty much right. Though it's not so much specific days/dates but lengths of time that the stocks must be held AND percentages of the total stock you hold that is allowed to be sold. A great example of this is Dick Cheney. He still gets most of his income from sales of HAliburton stock even though he resigned years ago. He just isn't allowed to dump the stock.

There are alot of unknowns in this situation. Though considering the increasingly poor performance of GW I think this does not look good.

ender502

Thanks for the info Nyarly and Ender. Useful to know!

Time will tell.

The fact remains that GW stock has been on the decline for quite some time now and when an exec sells off it's a pretty good indication that his outlook on future performance is bleak.  Selling is not what the issuing company hopes the employee do.  The stock options represent a vested interest in the future of the stock by principal players.   Employee stock options are, in part, a way for a company to try and maintain some stability in the position of the stock.  Essentially it gives them a tiny bit of control over volume trading.  Selling is the last thing a company wants you to do when the issue you a stock option.

ENRON was an overstatement...  But it started there in the exact same fashion.  It will be interesting to see what happens to the stock over the next week.  Interesting to see if others follow suit.

 

I have found that this site gives me the best news when checking GAW Stock:
www.lse.co.uk/shareprice.asp

it also reports news regarding the stock, such as huge sells or buys as well as any GW announcements.
www.lse.co.uk/ShareNews.asp

Though it is not complete as far as news go, it is a decent overview.
 
People have obviously taken notice of the sell on the 12th. as indicated here:
www.lse.co.uk/ShareChart.asp

But if you recall from last year, it was low around this time as well, albeit much lower (257 range) .

The original post is valid news, the following two pages are mostly just totally uninformed pointless speculation by people with absolutely no knowledge of the rudimentary workings of shares, employee SOP's and director SOP's.

I like to point out GW failings as much as anyone else, but this is senseless.

Like someone else pointed out, he could just be buying a new house and doesn't want a mortgage. No-one knows the granting price of the option or whether or not it is an agreed timing sale, so the "beating comments" are just totally inappropriate. Infact NO-ONE KNOWS BUGGER ALL, so stop trying to appear informed!!!! No-one will know either unless he decides to post it all here.

Interesting site hellfury. It certainly does look like the drop and the sell out coincided. But it is really a chicken and egg scenario. Did he sell because of the drop? Did the stock drop because of the sale? Was the sale triggered by the drop? Can't be sure.

Fullheadofhair-

Grow up. This is what the internet is for.... baseless rants. Ofcourse, the baseless rants could be right. But then again maybe it's wrong. Either way lighten up. It's just the internet.

ender502

 

so you've got the scoop then?  were they options? what was his ownership of the Company?  Did he cash out entirely?  how old is he?  how long did he own the stock?  is he an employee or an institutional investor on their board?  if this is to mean anything - we need to know more than just a director sold a large number of shares.

They were options, he owned 23%, he cashed out entirely, he is currently 41 (his birthday is next week), He owned the stock from the time he aquired it until it was sold, he is an employee (a janitor in fact) and the bit you realy want but didn't ask about... he's got brown hair, likes cola slushies, motor scooters and fine cigars. Also he's single and rich!

Now would be the time to complain about GW pricing... Golden umbrellas for Janitors... now I have seen it all.

Posted By Zubbiefish on 04/27/2007 12:25 PM
They were options, he owned 23%, he cashed out entirely, he is currently 41 (his birthday is next week), He owned the stock from the time he aquired it until it was sold, he is an employee (a janitor in fact) and the bit you realy want but didn't ask about... he's got brown hair, likes cola slushies, motor scooters and fine cigars. Also he's single and rich!

its funny because this type of thing is in most audits they look at this sort of thing- they look at the directors and their cash outs to see if they have a reason to do so and most of the time when they do it, it goes to escrow until it is reviewed.  It should be interesting to see what P-Dub says about them when their financials come out- only be worried if they issue a "Going Concern" paragraph, a "Qualified Opinion" relating to a Material Deficiency, or an "Adverse Opinion".  Outside of that they are fine.

On the ESOP, I'm thinking they don't need to adopt FAS 150 though since they don't trade in the US, but I think the IAS has something similar to this since they run almost parallel to the FASB.

besides according to this report and judging by the amount of ownership Mr. Kirby has, I'd say that this guy only owns roughly 2.5% of the Company as Kirby has a 6.6% interest in the company and owns 2.047M shares.

Just because he sold it, that doesn't mean he thinks the company is in dire straits. Just as Nyarlathotep said, he may have a small window to sell in. He also may have a vesting schedule that determines when he may exercise his options to further limit his options as to sale date. Just because he chose to cash them in, that doesn't mean he thinks things are bad... He might just think something else is better.

Of course, these might not be options at all, they might be stocks he took as salary, or bought himself as an investment... And he might know for a fact the company is tanking.

I don't know any of it, I just don't think that selling stock means you think a company is doomed.

IT GW, so obviously when coming to any important decision not in the rule book he rolled a D6 to see if he should sell his shares.

Posted By Shaman on 04/27/2007 8:05 PM
IT GW, so obviously when coming to any important decision not in the rule book he rolled a D6 to see if he should sell his shares.

LOL. Shaman wins.

ender502

Maybe there is a connection between this sale and the purchase of stockl by Phoenix Asset Management.

To be honest GW is a good investment if you can become a major shareholder. GW studio gets away with their crap because there isn't one.

I know I am preaching to the choir here when I say that a lot of GW business could be fixed by a few choice policy and staffing changes.

When a company is very big, has a lot of potential and is being crippled by poor management and ideology - its a VERY good investment.

Take GW, over come in with a majority share and make demands of the studio and the head office. Its a classic case of a company perfect for takeover. Instant fix and instant reward and financially its a no brainer as the necessary changes could be made with very little effort for a company this size.

Posted By Orlanth on 04/28/2007 5:50 AM
When a company is very big, has a lot of potential and is being crippled by poor management and ideology - its a VERY good investment.

Good point. As an aside, this is how Warren Buffet made most of his billions.