ServiceNow CEO Makes Opportunistic $25M Stock Sale as Shares Slide

CEO Bill McDermott cashed out almost 54,000 shares, worth nearly $25 million at the time of his Feb. 1 transactions, according to a filing with the SEC. He had 1,933 shares of unrestricted, non-option holdings remaining after the transactions, per the filing.

For Ben Silverman, the director of research at VerityData, McDermott’s sales seem “opportunistic” given that he declined to sell stock over the prior two years.

“It felt like he was picking a spot here to try to capture a high price with the sale,” he told MarketWatch, as ServiceNow’s stock is “in recovery mode” from its fourth-quarter lows. Silverman, who tracks buyback patterns and insider activity, doesn’t think a real-estate investment is a “good excuse” for a stock sale that made up such a large portion of McDermott’s unrestricted, non-option holdings.

“In fact, that makes it worse,” he told MarketWatch. Real estate is an investment, but so is ownership of ServiceNow shares. “What you’re saying is that he thinks a real-estate investment is a better investment than ServiceNow stock.”