James Defranco's Insider Trades

[downriver]

A founder and Director of Echostar along with Charlie, Mr Defranco appears to be divesting his echostar stock at an astonishing pace:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/insider/trans.asp?Symbol=DISH

Check it out!!

 

[Hall]

This is the 3rd thread on this subject.... Have to admit, you're the first to imply anything bad about it. I suggest you look at his total # of shares held and you'll see it's not as bad as you'd like to think.

 

[AT&TDishman]

Time will tell won't it?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Actually from the filings some of them were planned timed sales.

Nothing out of the ordinary on this one.

 

[DishSubLA]

I believe James and other stock holders who work for the company can only sell during a short period or window of opportunity. Often they take advantage of this time to make sure they cash in what they want, for they will be forbidden once the window closes until it opens again. This is why you will sometimes see many Echostar executives cashing in their stock all at the same time. It might look like a run, but it is not. This is sometimes the result of contractual limitations imposed by the company. The SEC regulations on these matters and the grade of stock are massively complicated, but this is standard practice for many employees who own stock in the companies they work for.

 

[Zero327]

I would kill for just one of Jim's trades...

 

[Slamminc11]

Actually from the filings some of them were planned timed sales.

Nothing out of the ordinary on this one.

Come on Scott, quit blowing holes into the conspiracy theorists hopes and dreams!

 

[downriver]

Come on Scott, quit blowing holes into the conspiracy theorists hopes and dreams!

Ha! No conspiracy theory here, where did that come from?? These are public filings!!

I thought he must have teenagers in the house. or a kid in college!!

 

[Hall]

Please google "insider trading". The days of executives dumping their stock when they know something is going to happen that would affect the stock price are long gone. As Scott mentioned, and I've mentioned in the other threads on this same subject, he has to get approval to sell these shares. You'll also notice that the price he rec'd for those is not the price of the shares on the day of the sale.

 

[jerryez]

It's higher?

 

[minnow]

Ha! No conspiracy theory here, where did that come from?? These are public filings!!

I thought he must have teenagers in the house. or a kid in college!!

Generally those of us with more modest means just pay tuition to send our kids to college. DeFranco's last stock sale would allow him to actually buy the entire college. Maybe he wanted to be President of the college ?

 

[downriver]

I suggest you look at his total # of shares held and you'll see it's not as bad as you'd like to think.

http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromMktGuideIdPersonTearsheet.jhtml?passedMktGuideId=49199

It would appear that Mr. Defranco has exercised most of his stock options, according to Forbes

Please google "insider trading".

Insider trading is not necessarily illegal. Insider trading entails the purchase and sale of corporate shares by officers, directors, and stockholders who own more than 10 percent of the stock of a corporation listed on a national exchange.

Sorry I must have missed those other threads!!

 

[StevenD]

http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromMktGuideIdPersonTearsheet.jhtml?passedMktGuideId=49199

It would appear that Mr. Defranco has exercised most of his stock options, according to Forbes



Insider trading is legal.

Sorry I must have missed those other threads!!

As mentioned in what must be a million other threads, Mr Defranco owns BILLIONS in "Class B" stock. Only "Class A" stock is listed on Forbes, Yahoo Finance, etc.

 

[downriver]

As mentioned in what must be a million other threads, Mr Defranco owns BILLIONS in "Class B" stock.

according to Bloomberg Charlie owns 100% of the class "B" stock..........it would appear that a million other threads were incorrect.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=amsiCEpYOkNs&refer=news_index

This is an interesting article!

also, the 2006 Echostar Proxy Statement lists Charlie and his better half owning 79% of the class "B" stock with the remaining 21% held in Trusts for the Ergen family.

 

[Peter Parker]

I am not sure about Calass b ownership. I see that your article gives Ergen 1005 ownership but some others say that he owns 1/3, that his wife owns 1/3 and that the remaining third is held by a group of 14 executives. that seems to agree with SEC filings but there are seeral articles corroborating the calim that Ergen owns it all.

 

[Bob Haller]

I do have concerns about the long term viablity of satellite TV, these concerns will likely allow the merger of D & E..........

 

[nitstalker]

I was bored for a few mins and did a looksee at the SEC...

It does seem he seems to be offloading E* stock like a lumberyard before a hurricane...

end of '03 he had about 4,766,802 in shares
end of 04 about the same 4,765,802 in shares
end of '05 not much changed 4,763,402 in shares

but since November he has been on a selling spree

he not only has been excercising tons of options to buy at about $27.18 and reselling them at aroun 40 bucks a share

he is also down to about 3,962,752 in Class A stock

Also one of his investors, Barclays filed yesterday with change in shares, they have sold about 2 million shares as compared to a filing around a year ago...

I dont know a whole lot about these things but it makes you wonder if some ppl know something we dont

 

[Slamminc11]

According to MSN Money, even after selling 380,000 shares so far in 2007, Jim still has 6 million shares.
Hell, Bill Gates sold over 16 million shares in November and December (hell of a Christmas around the Gates house) and no one is screaming about Microsoft.

 

[Stargazer]

Maybe they want to diversify their investments more and more as satellite has already matured. You do not want all of your eggs to all be in the same basket. If Echostar went down/out of business they would have plenty enough invested elsewhere to live off of extremely well. It's best to get all stock out while you can if you are very limited on what you can take out. I am sure there is other stock/investments getting a better return right now. I do think that there is not going to be much of a future for satellite unless they can get some new technological advances to compete with cable/internet/phone/tv bundling.

 

[navychop]

Some of us don't like bundling. Lose one function, you lose them all.