Bob Mansfield, Apple’s un-retired SVP of Technologies, is another high-ranked executive to cash in shares of AAPL stock after an “insanely insane” sell-off that saw a quarter of Apple’s market cap wiped off. Like other executives, Mansfield likely figured the move makes financial sense ahead of a rumored “fiscal cliff”.
According to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Mansfield, a long-time Apple veteran, unloaded 35,000 shares. At $582.21 a share, the transaction earned him $20,377,507.50. He still holds 29,548 shares and will get another 150,000 shares in June 2013 and March 2016 provided he stays with Apple.
Though Mansfield wanted to retire, Apple’s boss has managed to convince him to stick around for two more years. If Cook gave me a $2 million a month paycheck as a compensation for an advisement position, I’d also un-retire in a heartbeat….
Mansfield was granted stock options in 2005 that fully vested four years later. According to an entry on Apple’s Leadership page, Mansfield joined Apple when it bought out silicon vendor Raycer Graphics in 1999, where Mansfield served as vice president of Engineering.
Several senior Apple execs sold their shares over the past few months.
Last month, Dan Riccio, the recently minted Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering in place of Mansfield, sold 20,726 shares of stock worth about $10.7 million. He donated half a million dollars worth of shares to an unnamed charity.
Riccio, Mansfield’s right-hand man, took over the hardware division amid the widely reported Apple kerfluffle, which saw Cook appoint Mansfield as the head of the newly set up Technologies division that encompasses Apple’s wireless and semiconductor teams.
Riccio now leads the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod engineering teams, even if unnamed senior engineers reportedly felt he was “unprepared for the magnitude of the role”.
Meanwhile, per Bloomberg, Mansfield is now researching chip alternatives as Apple looks to drop Intel silicon in Macs in five years time.
Apple board member Arthur D. Levinson and General Counsel Bruce Sewell both sold a combined 18,225 shares in the last month. Finally, the outgoing iOS boss Scott Forstall in May sold $38.7 million worth of shares.