Friday, March 01, 2002

From Reuters:

Amazon.com Inc. chief executive and founder Jeff Bezos accelerated his selling of Amazon stock this month, unloading his biggest stake ever in the Internet retailer.

Mr. Bezos sold 2.95 million in Amazon shares valued at about $36.2 million during the first week of February, company spokesman Bill Curry confirmed. That exceeded Mr. Bezos's share sales for all of last year in both total number of shares and dollar value of shares sold. Mr. Bezos sold 2.2 million shares valued at approximately $27.3 million during 2001, according to Thomson Financial/Lancer Analytics, which tracks insider data and regulatory filings.

Some analysts said Amazon should provide an explanation for the February increase. "I do think this is a big enough deviation from historical patterns that I'm surprised there wasn't some explanation given," said Lauren Levitan, an analyst at Robertson Stephens.