Gates Sells 16 Million Microsoft Shares, Rakes In $421 Million

Microsoft's chairman Bill Gates took advantage of his company's recent stock run-up to sell 16 million shares over a six day period that netted him $421 million and change.

According to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, Gates sold 16 million shares of common stock starting July 27 and ending August 3 at prices ranging from $25.65 to $27.37.

The transactions ranged in size from the largest sale of 942,181 shares to the smallest of just 100 shares. Gates' biggest days were August 2, when he sold over 4 million shares for just over $106 million, and the next day, August 3, when he sold slightly under 4 million shares for a total of nearly $109 million.

By the documents filed with the SEC, Gates sold approximately 1.5 percent of his Microsoft holdings, leaving him about 1.02 billion shares, which at Monday's price of $27.30 means he holds more than $27.8 billion in Microsoft shares.

To put Gates' stock sale into perspective -- what percentage of his Microsoft portfolio he sold -- it would be equivalent to someone with a $60,000 portfolio selling securities worth about $930.

Other SEC filings showed that Robert Bach, a Microsoft senior vice president in charge of the Redmond, Wash.-based company's Home and Entertainment group, sold 100,000 shares on August 2 and 3, while execs Jeffrey Raikes (who heads the Information Worker Business group responsible for Office) and James Allchin (who leads the Platform Group that produces Windows) sold less than 1,000 shares each.

On July 27, when Gates first began his selling spree, Microsoft's stock opened at $25.61. The stock closed Friday, August 5, at $27.76.