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Disney CFO Thomas Skaggs was telling analysts last week during a conference call that the Mouse House had turned in "another strong quarter with substantial growth in revenue, operating income, and earnings per share." He was especially pleased that the numbers looked good across all the company's various divisions. Then, several days later, Skaggs sold a bunch of his stock. So did Disney General Counsel Alan Braverman. Of course, these guys are perfectly entitled to sell their shares. Skaggs made the transaction through a pre-determined trading plan known as a 10b5-1. This is the same way that Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo sold so many shares of the mortgage company (the same year Countrywide stock took a tumble). But Disney is not Countrywide. So you have to wonder why these two guys would pick this particular time to sell. "The sales are somewhat troubling in the sense that you don't have a lot of sell history here," Ben Silverman, director of research, at InsiderScore.com, told Barron's.
In particular, Silverman notes that Braverman sold a large portion of his holdings while Staggs achieved only a slim profit by exercising options that still had a year and a half of shelf life. "He was only booking a 29% gain," Silverman says of the spread between the CFO's strike price and sale price. "That's not a lot of upside for an options-related transaction." Taken together, the sales make Silverman somewhat cautious about Disney, especially as the company's resort and media businesses navigate a challenging economy.
Braverman's transaction is the largest non-options-related sale by a Disney insider in the last five years - and just the third such sale of any size during that period. Disney isn't talking. Surely these guys know that the transactions would be noticed - and that they would lead to all kinds of speculation, especially with Wall Street trying to get a handle on what kind of summer it will be for theme parks, resorts, box office performance. You know, all the stuff that makes up Disney’s business.
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.