Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) chairman and CEO Gil Shwed is following in the footsteps of vice chairman Marius Nacht and is seeking to sell shares in the company. According to a statement Check Point filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Shwed has filed a request to sell 600,000 shares.
At today's share price of $24.17, Shwed could make $14.4 million gross, on a sale.
As is the case with Nacht, the current sale is not Shwed's first sale of Check Point shares this year. In early March, he filed a request to sell 600,000 shares worth $12.6 million at the time. The current sale, if completed, will boost Shwed's gross gains for 2009 to $27 million.
Both Shwed and Nacht make blind sales; neither has any control over the timing or price of the sale, and in some cases they involve options converted into shares that are then sold to cover the cost exercising the options.
An examination by "Globes" into parties at interest transactions in Check Point over the past three years, indicates that Shwed has sold $72.1 million worth of shares.
Check Point's financial report for 2008 states that Shwed owned 15.6% of the company at the end of last year, Nacht owned 9.6%, and Franklin Resources Inc. (NYSE: BEN) owned 11.1%, making it the largest institutional investor in the company.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 16, 2009
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