BlackRock CEO Sold $24 Million of Stock as Insider Sales Up
Corporate insiders - buyers at the market bottom, selling post the rally.
(Bloomberg) -- BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink sold $24.2 million of stock in the world’s largest asset manager, bringing his sales this year to $74.4 million.
Fink disposed of 41,706 shares -- about 5% of his stake in the business -- at an average price of $580.29 on July 21, according to a regulatory filing. The filings didn’t indicate that his sales this year were made under a pre-scheduled trading plan.
The latest disposal comes as corporate insiders, whose buying accurately signaled the market bottom in March, are now mostly sellers. Almost 1,000 corporate executives and officers have sold shares of their own companies this month, outpacing insider buyers by a ratio of 5-to-1, data compiled by the Washington Service showed. Only twice in the past three decades has the sell-buy ratio been higher than now.
Fink, who’s a billionaire and still owns $457 million of BlackRock stock, this month warned of an uneven economic recovery even as rising investor confidence buoyed second-quarter results at the New York-based money manager.
“For our economy to be fully operational again it can’t be this bipolar economy,” the CEO said. “There’s been a lot of healing, and that’s what the market is reflecting, but there’s still a great component of our economy that hasn’t healed and is still struggling.”
BlackRock shares have jumped 16% this year and the company reported this month a rebound in flows to products such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.
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