(UDHAYAM, COLOMBO) – Facebook Inc. (FB) Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has unloaded more than $1 billion of Facebook stock over the course of the past year with proceeds going largely to bankroll the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, his philanthropic investment firm.
According to an analysis of Facebook’s annual proxy statement filed Friday to the Securities and Exchange Commission by Recode, Zuckerberg had around 9.6 million fewer shares at the end of March when compared to last year. The shares are valued at more than $1.3 billion, based on the closing stock price Friday. The report noted the Facebook CEO likely didn’t make $1.3 billion on the stock sales since they have been going on over several months before Facebook’s stock started its 12% increase. The report noted all of the proceeds will go to his and wife Priscilla’s charity. The couple has already committed $3 billion over the next 10 years to bankroll research aimed at curing all diseases.
Based on the filing, the stock sales are expected to continue under his pre-set trading plan that requires him to sell or gift no more than $1 billion Facebook stock each year through 2018. Despite the stock sales, the filing showed Zuckerberg still controls a majority of the company with 59.7% stake, noted Recode. Last year his stake stood at 60.1%.
Zuckerberg’s move to sell shares of Facebook comes at a time when the social media network has been resonating with advertisers which has resulted in a surge in its stock price.
Last week, Facebook announced more than 5 million businesses are using the social network each month to run ads. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told Reuters in an interview ahead of the announcement that hitting more than 5 million monthly advertises is a milestone for the social network operator but that it has even more room to grow. What’s more, Sandberg credited the growth in advertising partly to small businesses. “Small businesses provide such important products and services, but they also are a huge engine of job growth in a world where job growth is increasingly uncertain and something people really worry about,” Sandberg told Reuters.
