Corporate Execs Selling Off Stocks

Corporate insiders are selling stock just like everyone else these days. George Gleason II, for instance, recently raised a bit over $3 million by selling 103,000 shares of Bank of the Ozarks stock.

Still, that was less than 5 percent of Gleason's personal stake in BOZ. Compare that with the recent sell-off of Home BancShares Inc. stock by Chris Roberts, president and CEO of HBI's Centennial Bank of Little Rock.

Roberts woke up on Oct. 20 with direct ownership of 92,943 shares of HBI stock and started selling. By Oct. 29, he had sold every share for just under $2.45 million.  

On Halloween, he raised another $235,000 by selling every share of HBI stock in his IRA, his wife's IRA and his kids' trust funds.

In the end, all the Home BancShares stock Roberts owns are the 8,082 shares held in escrow for two years as part of the sale of Centennial Bank to Home BancShares.

Now, Chris Roberts wasn't the only HBI insider selling stock in late October and early November, but no one else cleared all the HBI stock – ticker symbol HOMB – out of his portfolio. Here's what recent Securities & Exchange Commission filings show:

• Director Gene Cauley of Little Rock sold the most shares, about 70 percent of his stock between Oct. 29 and Nov. 6. Specifically, he sold 278,118 shares for $7.44 million, leaving him with 108,311 shares worth about $2.75 million (plus another 32,147 shares worth about $800,000 in escrow for two years).

• Director and hedge fund manager Alex Leiblong unloaded 47,074 shares for $1.21 million, and his wife also sold 3,916 shares for $101,555. Leiblong still owns about 170,000 shares (worth $4.33 million), and the Key Colony Fund he manages owns 370,332 ($9.44 million).

• President and COO Ron Strother raised $678,072 by selling 25,000 shares, leaving him with just over 30,000 shares owned directly and another 5,100 in his 401(k).

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