This is a repost to help with what this means in context.
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It all makes sense. It is as I suspected. He cashed in his options, and then sold 25% of those on the public market to pay himself. This is a much different animal then a simple reporter's statement that the director of a company sold 25% of his total shares. True in fact, but misleading.
Here are the relevant sales in chronolgical order:
Exercised his options. Bought for .75 each. This adds 200,000 shares to the 100,000 shares he owned originally. For a total of 300,000 shares.
sell - Novak, Neil Direct Ownerhsip Exercise of options Options Common Share .0 -200,000 - 100%
buy - Novak, Neil Direct Ownership Exercise of options Common Shares .75 200,000 >100%
Here he sells 100,000 of the 300,000 (33%) BUT THIS IS A PRIVATE TRANSACTION, not on the open market, so could be to a relative or some other entity. Notice that he sold for only .825. May be to cover his option payment and tax.
Now he has 200,000 left
sell - Novak, Neil Direct Ownership Disposition carried out privately - Common Shares .825 -100,000 -33%
Now he sells 50,000 of those converted options to take some money off the table. This is where he actually takes some cash. This amounts to 25% of the remaining 200,000 shares:
sell - Novak, Neil Direct Ownership Disposition in the public market - Common Shares 5.15 -50,000 -25%
So, what actually occurred, as I suspected, was that he converted his 200,000 options and sold, for personal gain, 50,000 of those options.
This is a very different picture to me, then a reporter's simple statement that a director sold 25% of his stake in his company.
No worries!