Ann: Change of Director's Interest Notice, page-45

I explained this to you in another thread when you made the some remark/voiced this suspicion. We already knew these announcements were coming (with the exception of the Illara and DARPA ones, one is positive the other negative or at least nothing positive to gain from it) and it's not like they could change them at the last minute either since these were established deadlines from months ago.

Now you could still say well he might've known the likely outcome of these announcements and that's why he waited till after to execute the options. But if that was the case why wouldn't he have just executed them ages ago when the SP was much higher? For most of this year after we recovered from the FDA rejection we've pretty much consistently been trading around these levels. While TK has sat on these options for a long time and could've made much more if he had done it in the past.

So the question of why execute the options now? Well firstly they were going to be executed regardless because they were ITM (wouldn't make sense to just let them expire). But as for why time it (or well not time it/wait for expiry) like this? It could be that he doesn't want to manipulate/influence the SP too much, while it might not be what investors would want but a slow, steady and stable SP growth is much better for a company than a big roller coaster ride (which is what much of RAPs trading history has been like haha). As it makes budgeting and planning things like CR's much easier, and for companies or other stakeholders that are interested in doing business with them it's more reassuring knowing you're dealing with something that's stable rather than unstable. If he had bought in at any time prior to expiry it would've carried with it a message that shareholders might interpret that something really good must be happening soon (happens all the time when you see director buying) and so the SP might shoot up, but the risk there is whenever the SP shoots up it can always fall just as fast if investors start to become nervous again and start dumping. Additionally there's also the risk of things being interpreted as insider trading, so conducting yourself in a way to minimise that likelihood is often preferable. So how do you avoid those things? There's a couple of options (no pun intended) you could disclose a schedule at which you'll be buying or selling, or in the case of options just wait till their expiry.

As for why some are not phased by him selling half, well how else do you expect for him to pay for them (I'm honestly surprised some weren't expecting this)? Pay for them out of his own pocket or take out a loan? I don't know what his personal financial position is, do you? But I can say I wouldn't want a CEO to risk too much that they end up with too much on the line and may negatively influence their decision making as a result. Either way he still holds half, even if that half is effectively free carried, it's still his money. So just watch and see what he does with that, as that will be a better indication of his long term belief than the sale today.