There has been a lot written about how the sale of founding directors shares should be viewed by the market. A favourite expression by those who believe that it should be viewed negatively is that "directors are dumping stock on unwitting bag holders". I thought it was worthwhile testing this thesis in relation to the shares sold by Afterpay's founders since their first sale in 2018. A history of share sales undertaken by the founders is as follows (noting that the 2 founders have to date always sold completely in unison - amount and price):
May 2018 - 5,000,000 shares sold @ $6.94 June 2019 - 4,100,000 shares sold @ $23.00 July 2020 - 4,090,000 shares sold @ $66.00
So after starting out with 25m shares each, the founders are now holding 18.4m shares each (valued at $2.5b based on Friday's closing price). Moreover, based on the current share price, the founders have transferred $407m in value from themselves to the "unwitting bag holders". Seems like a pretty good deal for the bag holders from where I'm sitting.
APT Price at posting:
$68.54 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
