RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:... "Scoundrels" ...Lati: Your post seems extremely inaccurate. You seem to not like to use the facts but change them as you see fit. Firstly, you say Mr. Thomson (MT) had no problem with letting his 550k shares go. Actually, he had no choice in the matter. That decision was made before the strategic review began. He pledged the shares against the debt. I assume the debt is about $6 million. MT would have had to decide before the strategic review at what price he would let the shares go. Therefore, it was set at about $12 and thus had to put up 500,000 shares = $6M. The shares at the time were trading at $30 - $40 and therefore MT would assume that they would never hit $12. Everything is in place BEFORE the strategic review and the shares were sold based on this agreement. I am sure MT knew they were being sold but there is nothing he could do about it as the collateral on the debt hit the target price. Of course if you were MT you would have "moved heaven and earth" to cover the debt and not have them sold if you thought they were worth much more. This Lati is textbook insider trading because you would be making that buy/sell/not sell decision having full knowledge of the details of the on-going strategic review.
Secondly, you say he was basically placing a put against his stock to get away from the strategic review selling stipulations. Actually, placing a put on his stock would basically lock in the price of his shares at the time of placing the put (ie. at $30-$40) as the value of the put would increase at the same time as the value of his shares are decreasing. In MT's case though, his shares were sold at $12, not the $30-$40 he would have received with the put.
Thirdly, you say he took care of his own stock while the stock was tanking. You seem to say that he knew the price was going to go down and he had a back door to get out. Well if he did know it was going to tank, why would he put a $12 price on his pledged shares. Why would he not have put a $15 or $20 or $25 price. Then he would not have had to pledge nearly as many shares. For $20, he would only have to pledge 300,000 shares.
Finally, you did not really answer the original questions from Register 123. MT's 500,000 share sale was NOT insider trading as he had not choice in the sale as it was set up before the strategic review. Also, if MT were to sell any other shares (of his 1.5M+ shares) that are not part of the pledged shares it WOULD be insider trading. Yes, MT still has alot of skin in the game, if you call $15M alot of skin.