14 DAY TRIAL // Along with the strong financial results for Q4 and the leadership change, Google filed another document revealing that current CEO Eric Schmidt plans to sell a big chunk of his Google shares over the coming year. In total, Schmidt will sell six percent of his stake, valued at today's trading price at around $335 million.
Schmidt announced that he would be stepping down as CEO of Google and will continue as Executive Chairman, focusing on external affairs, deals and partnerships.
Along with this executive change, he will also be selling some of his shares in the company he helped build, in order to diversify his assets, the Securities and Exchange Commission filing reads.
"The pre-arranged trading plan was adopted in order to allow Eric to sell a portion of his Google stock as part of his long-term strategy for individual asset diversification and liquidity," Google said in the filing.
"Using this trading plan, Eric can diversify his investment portfolio and can spread stock trades out over a period of one year to reduce market impact," it added.
"Because this trading plan was established well in advance of a trade, it also helps avoid concerns about whether Eric had material, non-public information when he made a decision to sell his stock," Google explains.
Schmidt will sell 534,000 shares in 2011. Google stock is currently trading at $626.77, making his shares worth about $335 million. Stock price will fluctuate during the year so he may end up cashing more than that, or, of course, less.
The current CEO owns 9.2 million shares in Google, a 2.9 percent stake. At today's stock price, those shares are worth $5.8 billion. After the sale, he will own 2.7 percent of the company, giving him 9.1 percent of the voting power, down from 9.6 percent today.