CEO Mike Sievert sells $6.5 million worth of T-Mobile stock ahead of mystery news release
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Earlier this morning, we told you that T-Mobile has been acting very strangely by arranging to staff call centers with extra personnel. The carrier also wants Store Managers to spend at least eight hours a day at each location until Friday. It almost sounds as though the company is about to make a very unpopular announcement-like a price hike-and expects customers to protest.
Some T-Mobile employees on Reddit confirmed that they have been called in to bolster staffing levels at stores and the anxiety level reached by T-Mobile employees and customers is at a level never seen during the reign of former CEO John Legere who gets the credit for taking T-Mobile from a lowly fourth place among U.S. major wireless providers to its current position at number two behind Verizon.
The most likely reason for T-Mobile to go to Defcon 1 is a hike in the pricing of its legacy postpaid plans. But to give the worrywarts out there more ammo, per Investing.com, it seems that T-Mobile CEO and President Mike Sievert has sold off a large chunk of his T-Mobile holdings collecting $6.5 million from the transaction. On May 13th and 14th, Sievert sold 40,000 T-Mobile shares. He dumped 20,000 shares the first day at an average price of $163.20 and sold an additional 20,000 the next day at an average price of $162.84.
Is the timing suspicious? Should T-Mobile customers and employees be even more worried than they are? The answer to both questions is "No."
T-Mobile President Mike Sievert sold 40,000 T-Mobile shares in a transaction valued at $6.5 million
There are some indications that Sievert's T-Mobile stock sales have nothing to do with the mysterious actions that T-Mobile is taking this week. First of all, the stock sales were made under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan that Sievert put into effect in November 2023. This plan allows corporate insiders to sell shares at predetermined periods of time reducing the odds that the insider will be accused of insider trading.
Additionally, Sievert still holds 438,124 T-Mobile shares so the 40,000 shares sold represented only 8.4% of the executive's holdings. That means he still has plenty of skin in the game and seriously bad news for the company still could hurt his wallet. Besides, if the news is what we suspect it is, a price hike for legacy postpaid plans, it shouldn't result in a mass exodus of customers from T-Mobile. Certainly, nothing should happen that would result in the stock crashing.
While we are still intrigued by what has T-Mobile expecting to face the wrath of its subscribers before the end of this week, there is nothing suspicious in the timing of Mike Sievert's stock sale. The stock itself has taken the impact of this news and still managed to move higher today by 46 cents to $164.36.
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