After the surge in Palantir's stock price, co-founder Peter Thiel plans to sell nearly $1 billion worth of shares for cash
After announcing its inclusion in the S&P 500 index, Palantir's stock price surged, closing at $34.76, up 0.46%. Co-founder Peter Thiel plans to sell nearly $1 billion worth of shares through his investment firm Rivendell 7 LLC, under a "10b5-1 plan" that allows for the sale of up to 28,590,737 shares by December 31, 2025. Thiel's last stock sale was in May, with a total transaction value of $273.5 million
According to the financial news app Zhitong Finance, after Palantir (PLTR.US) announced last Friday that it will officially join the S&P 500 Index on September 23, its stock price has soared significantly. One of the company's largest shareholders may cash out by selling up to nearly $1 billion worth of shares.
According to regulatory filings submitted by Palantir in August, the company's co-founder and chairman, Peter Thiel, through his investment company Rivendell 7 LLC, adopted a "10b5-1 rule plan" on May 15. This plan allows Rivendell 7 to sell up to 28,590,737 shares by December 31, 2025.
Company executives and directors adopt these plans to avoid profiting from trading stocks based on undisclosed information. These plans automatically execute trades when preset conditions (such as price, trading volume, and time) are met.
As of now, Thiel's stock sale plan has not executed any sales of Palantir shares. Thiel's last sale of Palantir shares was between May 8 and 10, when he sold a total of 13 million shares through a trading plan set on December 12, totaling $273.5 million, with an average selling price of $21.11 per share.
In these transactions, Rivendell 7 sold 8 million shares of Palantir stock, leaving 62.9 million shares. Thiel's other investment company, STS Holdings II LLC, also sold 5 million shares of Palantir stock, leaving 15.7 million shares. In addition, other investment companies under Thiel's name hold 21 million shares of Palantir stock.
Furthermore, Thiel's investment companies also hold 32.5 million shares of Palantir Class B shares with super-voting rights. As a co-founder of Palantir, Thiel also individually owns the investment rights to 335,000 shares of Class F stock through the Founder Voting Trust. Publicly traded Palantir shares have one vote per share, while Class B shares have 10 votes per share.
The Founder Voting Trust consists of 1,005,000 shares of Class F stock, evenly held by Palantir's three co-founders - Thiel, CEO Alexander Karp, and President and Secretary Stephen Cohen, representing 49.99% of the voting rights.
Since the beginning of this year, Palantir's stock price has doubled, with a 14% increase in share price on Monday after announcing its inclusion in the S&P 500 Index last Friday. Based on the recent price of $34.17 per share, the total value of Thiel's planned stock sale is approximately $977 million.
It is currently unknown when Thiel's stock sale plan will be executed, but the current stock price is already 62% higher than the average price at the time of the sale in May At the close of Monday, the stock rose by 0.46%, closing at $34.76
