Google chairman Eric Schmidt plans to sell just under half his stake in the company, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Friday.
Schmidt owns 7.6 million shares of Google stock and plans to sell about 3.2 million shares of those shares over time, through a series of planned transactions.
At today's share price of $785, that would put about $2.5 billion in his pocket, though obviously Schmidt's actual proceeds will vary.
Schmidt currently owns 2.3% of Google's outstanding shares and has 8.2% of the voting power. That's because he owns both Class A shares and Class B shares. The latter have enhanced voting rights.
Google is planning to issue a third class of stock, Class C shares.
Here's the full SEC report:
On November 15, 2012, Eric E. Schmidt, Google's Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, adopted a stock trading plan in accordance with the guidelines specified in Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Google's Policy Against Insider Trading. In February 2013, sales of Eric's Google stock may commence under this trading plan.
The pre-arranged trading plan was adopted in order to allow Eric to sell a portion of his Google stock as part of his long-term strategy for individual asset diversification and liquidity. The stock transactions pursuant to this trading plan will be disclosed publicly through Form 4 and Form 144 filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Using this trading plan, Eric can diversify his investment portfolio and can spread stock trades out over a period of one year to reduce market impact.
As of December 31, 2012, Eric beneficially owned approximately 7.6 million shares of Class A and Class B common stock, which represented approximately 2.3% of Google's outstanding capital stock and approximately 8.2% of the voting power of Google's outstanding capital stock. Under the terms of this trading plan, Eric intends to sell up to approximately 3.2 million shares of Class A common stock. If, during the one-year period for which this trading plan is effective, Google declares and pays a dividend of one share of Class C capital stock for each share of Class A common stock and Class B common stock then outstanding, then a number of shares of Class C capital stock equivalent to the number of shares of Class A common stock subsequently sold, will also be sold under the trading plan. On a pro forma basis as of December 31, 2012, assuming all shares of Class A common stock (and excluding the shares of Class C capital stock to be issued pursuant to the dividend) had been sold under the trading plan, Eric would have owned approximately 4.4 million shares, which would have represented as of such date approximately 1.3% of Google's outstanding capital stock and approximately 5.0% of the voting power of Google's outstanding capital stock.
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