Palantir stock has soared since it was announced late Friday that shares of the data-analytics company would join the S&P 500 index, effective Sept. 23. One of its largest shareholders could cash in on that move by selling as much as $1 billion of the stock.
Palantir stock slipped 2% in premarket trading.
Palantir disclosed in a regulatory form in August that Rivendell 7 LLC, an investment vehicle owned by co-founder and Chairman Peter Thiel, on May 15 adopted a so-called Rule 10b5-1 plan allowing for the sale of as many as 28,590,737 shares by Dec. 31, 2025, or earlier.
Executives and directors adopt such plans to remove the potential for them to benefit from nonpublic information when selling or buying stock. The plans automatically execute trades when preset conditions, such as price, volume, and timing, are met.
Thiel didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the stock-selling plan.
Although it was adopted nearly four months ago, Thiel's plan hasn't yet executed any sales of Palantir stock. His last sales were from May 8 through 10 when Thiel sold a total of 13 million shares for $273.5 million, or $21.11 each on average. Those transactions were made through a trading plan adopted on Dec. 12.
Rivendell 7 sold 8 million Palantir shares in those transactions, leaving it with 62.9 million shares. STS Holdings II LLC, another Thiel vehicle, sold 5 million Palantir shares in those transactions, leaving it with 15.7 million shares. Other Thiel vehicles owned 21 million Palantir shares.
Thiel vehicles also own 32.5 million supervoting Class B Palantir shares, and as a Palantir co-founder Thiel has sole investment power over 335,000 Class F shares held in the Founder Voting Trust. Palantir's publicly traded shares each carry one vote, and Class B shares each carry 10 votes.
The Founder Voting Trust consists of 1,005,000 Class F shares, owned equally by the three co-founders of Palantir -- Thiel, CEO Alexander Karp and Stephen Cohen, president and secretary -- and generally represents a 49.99% voting interest.
Palantir stock has doubled year to date, including a 14% jump on Monday after the late Friday S&P 500 announcement. At a recent stock price of $34.17, the shares that Thiel's vehicle plans to sell are valued at $977 million in total.
When Thiel's plan will begin selling Palantir stock remains to be seen. Shares are already 62% above the average price of the May sales.
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