Nvidia directors, execs cash in

SHARE PRICE HAS DOUBLED SINCE SUMMER

By Chris O'Brien
Mercury News

It's been an eventful few months for Nvidia, full of good and bad news. Investors have largely ignored the negative news, sending the Santa Clara company's stock soaring.

Since the stock started a comeback in mid-July, six insiders have sold $87.65 million worth of Nvidia shares, including $74 million in December. So far in the current quarter, insider stock sales at Nvidia are running at the highest quarterly level in five years, according to information from Thomson Financial.

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Yahoo COO didn't get `pink slip'

ROSENSWEIG LEFT AFTER HELPING PLAN SHAKE-UP

By Chris O'Brien
Mercury News

Last week's Insiders column noted that Yahoo chief operating officer Daniel Rosensweig ``got the pink slip.'' Not true, according to members of the Yahoo PR team.

A Yahoo spokesperson elaborated on Rosensweig's departure in an e-mail:

``Dan was asked to renew his long-term commitment to Yahoo as one of the leaders of the company,'' the spokesperson wrote. ``After five years, he made a personal decision not to renew a long-term contract, and to leave. He worked closely with the management team over the past few months on the new structure to align Yahoo for future growth.''

In other words, Rosensweig helped chart the recently announced Yahoo management reorganization but declined an offer to stick around. The company spokesperson said Rosensweig's responsibilities would not have been diminished under the new regime.

Still, Rosensweig's decision to leave comes just six months after he negotiated a four-year deal designed to keep him at the company through 2009. By leaving, Rosensweig is walking away from $500,000 in annual salary; a potential annual bonus of up to $1 million; and 2.1 million stock options with a strike price of $31.59 that vest over four years -- but only as long as he works at Yahoo.

After deciding to leave, Rosensweig and Yahoo negotiated a separation agreement. Terms were disclosed in a Dec. 8 filing Yahoo made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:

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Nice payout for canceled options

MERCURY INTERACTIVE ACQUIRED FOR $4.5 MILLION

By Chris O'Brien
Mercury News

Hewlett-Packard of Palo Alto made a big bet last month when it paid $4.5 billion in cash to acquire Mercury Interactive. The Mountain View software company had become one of many Silicon Valley companies caught up in the stock option backdating scandal.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had begun probing Mercury Interactive in the summer of 2005. And by November 2005, the company's board found several executives had manipulated the grant dates of stock options and forced the resignation of Chief Executive Amnon Landan, Chief Financial Officer Douglas Smith and General Counsel Susan Skaer.

Bad news for them. But thanks to the acquisition, a dozen remaining Mercury insiders had much happier endings.

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Execs cash in as Focus clings to life

COMPANY SUFFERED NEAR-FATAL BLOW FROM MICROSOFT

By Chris O'Brien
Mercury News

Focus Enhancements of Campbell is one of those Silicon Valley companies that flies below the radar for years, alternating between moments of promise and near death experiences. But such cases still provide at least a few insiders the chance to make tidy profits on their company stock.

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Cisco stock making a new surge

EXECUTIVES SELL $149.7 MILLION IN COMPANY SHARES

By Chris O'Brien
Mercury News

Before Google became Silicon Valley's leading source of new millionaires, there was Cisco Systems.
As the San Jose networking company rose to prominence in the 1990s, its use of stock options and its rocketing stock price enriched legions of employees. Alas, the new century has not been as kind, even though it remains the valley's most valuable company by market value.
After plummeting in late 2000 and early 2001, Cisco's stock has bounced around the $20 range for the past five years. It enjoyed a strong run in 2003, topping off at $29.13 per share in January 2004, before stumbling again. Despite fairly steady growth, investors just seemed to shrug.
Since August, though, Cisco's stock has been making another big push, rising from $17.24 on Aug. 4 to $26.84 Friday. Whether it can sustain that momentum remains to be seen.
But insiders aren't waiting to find out. Ten Cisco insiders have sold $149.7 million in Cisco stock since Aug. 16. The $128.46 million sold since Sept. 1 -- the start of Cisco's second quarter -- marks the most quarterly selling at the company over the past five years, according to Thomson Financial. During that time, insiders sold an average of $28 million each quarter.

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Insiders: Silver Lake's Seagate deal continues to pay off

By Chris O'Brien
Mercury News

Almost six years ago, a little known private equity outfit named Silver Lake Partners created a stir by spending $2 billion to buy esteemed disk drive maker Seagate and take it private. It was an incredibly complex deal that involved a Cayman Islands partnership and spinning off a Seagate software division to create Veritas Software.

While Silver Lake was a new name to most, its investors included an all-star lineup of tech heavyweights such as Oracle's Larry Ellison, Microsoft's Bill Gates and Dell's Michael Dell. And since then, the Menlo Park-based firm has grown to become such a formidable deal maker that it was included in a recent list of private equity firms contacted by the U.S. Justice Department as part of an informal probe into the firms' collaboration on leveraged buyouts.
But even now, Silver Lake continues to profit from the deal that helped put it on the map. Between Nov. 1 and Nov. 8, Silver Lake partner James Davidson, who sits on the Seagate board, sold 11 million of his firm's Seagate shares for $244.45 million.

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Welcome

This is a place where I'll post my weekly Insider Sales Column that I'm writing for the San Jose Mercury News. It runs each Monday on page 2A of the print version. Please enjoy and contact me with any feed back or comments. Here we go....