Microsoft - Shares Sold

Well - this post isn't as much about technology and it's impact on humanity.  It's about something that I'm never too much in-tune with, but that I still found interesting.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced this week that he had made some minor tweaks to his portfolio.  Apparently, he wanted to diversify, to smooth out his exposure, so he went and sold 75 million of his shares in Microsoft.  Just a little transaction to even our his portfolio.  Million, wow.  How many million shares does he have? 

With the share price of Microsoft of about $26 yesterday, that means that the net proceeds of the sale was about $2b.  Holy Cannoli, these are numbers that just boggle my mind.  Which brings me to my original question, exactly how many shares DOES he have?  This same article made it sound like this was a relatively minor transaction, that it was routine, but I'd have to guess that this transaction probably represented at least 20% of his total net worth.  I've just done this amazing little thing called "reading the article" that answers this question.  His total holdings in MSFT is 408,000,000 shares.

Reading a bit further down, one can see that it might not have just been about diversifying either.  It goes on to say that there are new tax rules coming up in January with regards to the disposition of stock and by selling now as opposed to after the new laws come into effect, that it is estimated that this will save him around $65m.  Wow.  To have a soft paper savings of $65m.  This is clearly a scale of economy that is far over my head.  These numbers should apply to large corporations or small countries, not an individual.

I'm guessing that it's safe to safe that my little forays into the financial markets as I readjust my pension holdings are not as impressive as Mr. Ballmer.

The same article goes on to state that Mr. Gates also sold a few shares this week - assuming for the same reasons - for a total of 3,000,000 shares sold.  Poor Bill, he only realized net proceeds for $75,000,000 or so.  I guess that it will be Steve picking up the tab at the hot dog cart when the two of them go for lunch this week.