Palantir co-founder Stephen Cohen makes over $50 million from stock trades

MW Palantir co-founder Stephen Cohen makes over $50 million from stock trades

Tomi Kilgore

Fellow insiders Matthew Long and Ryan Taylor also make millions from selling shares acquired through the conversion of derivative securities

Palantir Technologies Inc. co-Founder Stephen Cohen has netted more than $50 million from trading the data integration and software company's stock, as he flipped the 2 million shares he acquired for nothing through equity grants.

Fellow company insiders Matthew Long and Ryan Taylor also sold netted millions from similar trades.

Palantir's stock (PLTR), which went public on Sept. 30 , slumped 5.5% in morning trading Tuesday. It has lost 32.2% since closing at a record $39.00 on Jan. 27.

Palantir disclosed late Monday in a Form 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Cohen , who is the company's president and secretary, and a board member since 2005, acquired 2 million Class A shares at $0 on Feb. 18 through the conversion of derivative securities.

He turned around and sold 1.15 million shares on the same day, 550,000 shares on Feb. 19 and 300,000 shares on Feb. 22, for total sales of 2 million shares in the open market. The weighted average price of the sales was $26.8020, for a value of $53.60 million, according to a MarketWatch analysis of SEC data.

After the trades, Cohen owned 203,647 Palantir shares, or a small fraction of the 1.74 billion shares outstanding as of Nov. 6.

Also late Monday, the company disclosed that General Counsel Long acquired 503,864 shares at $0 on Feb. 18, through the conversion of derivative securities. On the same day, he sold the same amount of shares at a weighted average price of $25.0962, which valued the shares at $12.65 million.

Also on Feb. 18, Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer Taylor acquired 218,255 shares at $0 through equity grants. He then sold 218,255 shares at a weighted average of $25.1680, for a value of $5.49 million.

The company said all of the insider trades were made under pre-existing 10b5-1 trading plans.

Palantir's stock has rallied 25.8% over the past three months, while the S&P 500 index has gained 7.6%.

-Tomi Kilgore; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com

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February 23, 2021 10:54 ET (15:54 GMT)

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