An Applied Materials facility. CEO Gary Dickerson just sold $14.7 million of shares of the semiconductor-equipment maker.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Applied Materials stock has been surging, and two top executives just sold nearly $22 million of shares of the semiconductor-equipment maker.
Applied Materials (ticker: AMAT) stock surged 41.4% last year compared with a 16.3% rise in the S&P 500 index. Shares continue to outperform, up 55% year to date compared with the index’s 11.4% gain.
Evercore analyst C.J. Muse told Barron’s late last year that “[u]nder a Biden administration, the big winners are equipment suppliers,” including Applied Materials. We recently noted that Wall Street saw the shares as a way to play the current chip shortage.
Applied Materials President and CEO Gary Dickerson sold 105,184 shares on April 9 for a total of $14.7 million, a per-share average price of $140. Dickerson still owns 2.4 million shares, including unvested performance shares and restricted stock units, or RSUs, according to a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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He wasn’t alone. Prabu Raja, a senior vice president in the semiconductor products group, sold 50,000 shares on April 8 for $7 million, an average price of $140.95 each. Raja now owns 426,724 shares, including unvested performance shares and RSUs.
Applied Materials didn’t respond to a request to make the two executives available for comment.
Dickerson and Raja last sold stock in late 2019. Dickerson sold a million shares in November 2019 for $61.1 million, a per-share average price of $61.11. Raja sold 50,000 shares in December 2019 for $3 million, an average price of $60.73 each.
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.
