Unity bosses sold stock days before development fees announcement, raising eyebrows

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 278 points –
Unity bosses sold stock days before development fees announcement, raising eyebrows
eurogamer.net
18

Isn't this insider trading? If I owned a company and sold all my stock and then tanked my company with stupid news, that'd be illegal.

Though I'm surprised they sold it before the news. This kind of fund-raising tactics piss off customers but investors usually love it, the short-sighted creatures they are.

It's obviously insider trader but laws are for the poors.

The guy who owns the company knows what it means for the long term stock price: a plummet. He knows that'll come eventually if these changes go through.

Investors may react positively to the news, but when they see the damage it actually does, they'll pull out too.

The guy running the company has shares that are valued way higher than when he earned them, he is sitting so high right now it's far worth selling here instead of gambling on the response to the news. It's just simple "quit while you're ahead".

"Illegal" doesn't mean much anymore if you're rich. No one seems to be enforcing anything cuz we can't get in the way of that trickle-down.

No it’s not. If he unloaded a huge bunch out of nowhere just before the announcement then sure, it probably is, but that’s not what happened - he has been consistently selling stock the whole year, buying none.

What likely happens is he is paid partly, or was at some stage, in stock. To convert it to cash you need to sell it.

record scratch I-I-I-Insider trading!

We're bored of this business. Let's just suck it dry, let it whither away, and take our money elsewhere.

Customers...? Who?

As much as I can't stand John Riccitiello, anyone with RSUs will have vested stocks sold on a fixed schedule to cover taxes. They don't get to choose when or how much is sold as long as they have their RSUs configured as sell to cover. The executives are no different in this regard, except they have a great deal more stocks than the average employee. However, this doesn't absolve them of the awful new pricing structure. That shit should have been walked back before it ever left the planning stages.

So nobody would ever time such an announcement after such a divestiture.

Don't get me wrong, the timing was fucking abysmal. They really should have thought about that ahead of time, but these executives rarely think about anything other than how to line their own pockets.

So your saying they didn’t time the share sales with respect to the announcement- they timed the announcement with respect to the fixed share sales date.

If you’re selling shares monthly it doesn’t matter when the announcement is, you’re going to have people questioning your sell anyway. They would not have thought about the timing in relation to automated share sells at all because it’s a non issue.

I'm saying they didn't think about it at all because it's easier to blame users for misunderstanding than take responsibility for anything themselves.

SEC: we don’t see nothing, we don’t hear nothing, we don’t do nothing.

It's been a day since the announcement, and a few hours since people noticed the stock dump. What the fuck do you want them to do? Fully research the case, send out subpoenas, call hearings, listen to testimony and level fines all in less than 24 hours?

Naw you don’t understand, we’ve been in stocks since GameStop so we’re all experts now, and if we’ve learned anything by trying to play wall streets game, it’s that the game is rigged in wall streets favor.

Dudes right, they won’t do shit, or what they do will by wholly ineffective.

That's fucking funny. Lots of faith in their own decisions, huh?