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SoFi Technologies CEO Anthony Noto.
Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
SoFi
Technologies insiders recently disclosed stock transactions, some of which occurred more than a year ago, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A Tuesday regulatory filing from SoFi (ticker: SOFI) CEO Anthony Noto showed that his wife, Kristin Noto, bought 33,259 shares of the financial-services provider from August 2021 through this May on the open market for a total of $217,573. Kristin Noto paid as much as $14.23 per share on average in one 2021 transaction, but the overall average purchase price of all her buys is $6.54 each.
She purchased most of the stock—19,833 shares—on May 5, after a 2022 slump. SoFi stock tumbled 71% in 2022, and is about flat so far this year, including a 9% drop in Monday trading.
None of her purchases of SoFi stock had been previously disclosed, and the 33,259 shares now represent her entire personal holdings in the company.
Company insiders and their spouses typically have two business days to disclose stock transactions to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC declined to comment on the disclosure of Kristin Noto’s stock purchases.
SoFi didn’t immediately respond to requests made through emails and a phone call to comment for this article, or to make Anthony Noto available for comment on the filing. Kristin Noto didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment made through her personal website.
SoFi stock dropped on May 1 after the company said in its earnings report for the first quarter that personal-loan originations soared in the first three months of the year. Investors seemed to have taken that as a warning of losses going forward.
Part of the reason for weakness in the shares Monday may be an analyst downgrade, but part of it may be from simple profit-taking. SoFi stock soared 32% in the first quarter of 2023, but after the losses this month, shares are down 24% so far in the second quarter.
Shortly after the first-quarter report, Anthony Noto paid $390,218 over May 4 and 5 for a total of 80,000 SoFi shares, an average price of $4.88 each. He now owns 6.4 million SoFi shares in a personal account. Noto has been SoFi’s CEO since May 2021.
Chief Technology Officer Jeremy Rishel sold 200,000 SoFi shares on Tuesday for a total of $1.1 million, an average price of $5.47 each. He now owns 101,582 shares. Rishel, who joined SoFi in June 2022, also sold 81,000 SoFi shares in March for $523,276, an average price of $6.46 each. He doesn’t have any open-market purchases of stock on record, and most of the shares he owns are from conversions of restricted stock units.
The company didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment above Rishel’s sales.
Many companies require their executives and directors to buy and sell stock through trading plans, known as Rule 10b5-1 plans, which automatically execute transactions when preset parameters are met. They are intended to remove any potential for insiders to benefit from knowledge of nonpublic information.
Companies’ proxy statements typically disclose whether insiders are required to use trading plans, but SoFi’s latest proxy doesn’t mention that. None of the transactions described above were made through such instruments, the SEC filings indicate.
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.
Source: https://www.barrons.com/articles/sofi-stock-ceo-anthony-noto-buys-e2b4138c?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo