Best Buy‘s share value plummeted by 5 percent after its CEO, Hubert Joly, sold his company shares to cut down his stake by 44 percent.
Joly is said to have sold 398,000 shares valued at $12.8 million after the company gave out a less-than-positive sales forecast of the current quarter two weeks ago. Joly now holds a 0.16 percent stake in the retail giant, Reuters reported.
The company shares fell 3 percent to $31.34 on the New York Stock Exchange after the news broke.
Last month, Best Buy predicted that its second quarter profits would suffer from problems associated with the supply of some of its most profitable products. The company blamed an earthquake in Japan for the disruption in its product supply and its investment in customer service as the reason for the slowdown.
As PYMNTS reported last month, the company is finding itself wading through rough waters as it continues to bleed market share to eCommerce behemoth Amazon and as it deals with a falling demand for PCs and smartphones.
The company brushed off any reasons to panic after Joly’s sale. Best Buy spokesman Jeffrey Shelman said Joly’s share sale was “solely related to his desire to diversify his overall personal holdings,” and he had no plans to step down as the CEO.
The sale of his shares is less than “25 percent of his total [Best Buy] holdings when you include options and performance shares,” Shelman added.
According to Reuters, this year, the company’s shares have gained close to 8 percent, in comparison to a 1 percent increase in the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Index .SPLRCD.
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