Beyond Meat Insiders Rush to Sell Even as CEO Stands Pat
Beyond Meat Insiders Rush to Sell Even as CEO Stands Pat
(Bloomberg) -- Beyond Meat Inc. CEO Ethan Brown may not be selling his company shares anytime soon but that isn’t stopping other executives from cashing out gains after restrictions ended last month.
CFO Mark Nelson is the latest executive to sell 70,000 shares for $5.7 million, reducing his stake in Beyond Meat by 16%, according to a filing. Last week, Chief People Officer Cari Soto sold 10,000 shares for $824,471, a separate filing showed. Chief Growth Officer Charles Muth sold 50,000 shares, while board member Bernhard van Lengerich shed more than 133,000 shares, according to regulatory filings.
Other insiders who sold shares include Twitter co-founder and board member Biz Stone. Beyond’s largest shareholder, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, has sold 2.1 million shares, trimming its stake to 8.1%, according to filings and data compiled by Bloomberg.
Beyond Meat shares have lost nearly a quarter of their value since the IPO lockup period expired at the end of October. Even so, the stock remains more than 200% higher since going public in May.
In an interview with Bloomberg last month, CEO Brown said he will not sell more shares in his company after taking some profits back in July. ”Why would I?,” Brown said. “I’m entirely focused on long term.”
Shares extended losses on Monday, falling as much as 5.2% to the lowest since mid-May. The stock has fallen for the past eight weeks, its longest decline since the IPO.
To contact the reporters on this story: Tatiana Darie in New York at tdarie1@bloomberg.net;Meghan Genovese in New York at mgenovese@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Scott Schnipper
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