Playstation CEO Jim Ryan has recently sold a certain number of shares of his stock in the Sony.
As shared by Peter Ovo on Twitter, Jim sold 45,000 shares of his stock in Sony Corp Group, the main Sony company in Japan itself. You can verify the transaction and its details here, but we will also discuss it below.
If you’re questioning if this is legitimate, the document names Merril Lynch as Jim’s broker, and it uses his full real name. It also indicates, as one of the disclosures Jim is required to share, that he sold 35,021 shares last November 22, 2023, receiving monetary compensation of $ 3,067,346.56. This current sale is dated at December 15, 2023.
The value that Jim will get from this December 15 sale will depend on how much the stock is worth on that date. Of course, if you go to the top of the document, you can see that this was a Form 144, which Jim was required to fill out, and the government disclosed to the public, in accordance with the rules of the Securities Act of 1933.
Is this a legal or moral action by Jim? A layman could look at the circumstances around this sale, the fact that Jim will be retiring from Sony in a few months, and that he was head of the company when rival Microsoft successfully finished its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King.
You can already find people speculating that Jim is selling his shares because he thinks Sony’s business is going down. And some people may respond to that that he shouldn’t be allowed to sell his shares.
So, in general, CEOs and high level executives are allowed to sell shares of their company, and buy more of it. There are specific instances where they may be violating US laws, and then it will be illegal.
Jim Ryan’s contract with Sony as CEO of SIE would also outline rules on how Jim would be or would not be allowed to sell his shares, under the company’s own rules. Those rules would indicate, for example, how an executive could sell their shares from a company so that it would not look like insider trading.
So here’s the thing. Bill Gates has been slowly selling off his shares in Microsoft this whole time. While he had his own fortune on hand when he retired, he had to sell his shares slowly, so that he could divest himself from his company, without having it look like he was doing anything illegal, or lost faith in Microsoft’s value.
It’s possible that Jim has engaged the rules for selling his shares in Sony, in preparation for his retirement. Obviously, this transaction looks legitimate as it was fully divulged to the public. After retirement, retired CEOs like Gates and Ryan may simply want to have control over their money, to trade or use outside their former company.
If something illegal or unethical happened here, we may find out yet in a few months’ time. But as it looks like right now, this may be nothing more than an indication that Jim really is preparing to leave the video game industry behind, and move on to the next phase of his life.
