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In recent days Ms. Sandberg has unloaded another parcel of shares, bringing the total number she has cashed in since the social media giant went public in May 2012 to around ten million – adding $400 million to her bank balance.
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Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of social media giant Facebook, reportedly disposed of a further $100 million worth of shares in the company, which she joined in June 2008, bringing her personal total of shares sold to date since Facebook made its stock-market debut in May 2012 to around ten million, adding $400 million to her bank balance.
In truth, at the time of the IPO, Ms. Sandberg was sitting on a stock portfolio including just over 40 million Facebook shares, although the majority of them came in the form of restricted stock units.
According to estimates of recent filings, Ms. Sandberg is still sitting on around eight million redeemable Facebook shares (0.5 per cent) with a current value of just over $550 million, although that figure has been steadily fluctuating downwards, with shares in Facebook fall 9% in the last two trading days, reaching their lowest value since the end of January, at $56.75. The recent fall in value of Facebook shares now means that Sheryl Sandberg can, at least temporarily, no longer wear the mantle of one of the world’s youngest billionaires as well as the one of the even fewer self made females who fall into that category, with her personal fortune now have dropped to a mere $980 million.
While that statistic may not seriuosly concern Ms. Sandberg, Mark Zuckerberg or the rest of the world’s financial markets, the question on many people minds may well be, what is the underlying motive to unload so many shares, especially with the future of Facebook looking especially rosy for the moment.
Rumors are that Ms Sandberg may be preparing the ground for a return to the public sector, although that possibility seems unlikely for the conceivable future.
Sheryl Sandberg graduated from the Harvard Business School, with a Masters degree in economics.
Sheryl began her professional career as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company, before the meeting her professional association with Larry Summers, by then United States Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of President Bill Clinton. From 1996 to 2001, Sandberg held the role of Summer’s Chief of Staff, playing a major part in the Treasury’s mission of forgiving debt in the developing world.
Ms. Sandberg left the Treasury to join Google Inc. in 2001, remaining there until early 2008, when she was appointed by Facebook to become their COO.
