Top BlackBerry executives sold small blocks of the company's stock on the day the smartphone maker warned of a huge quarterly operating loss and massive job cuts, according to Canadian regulatory filings.
The filings showed CEO Thorsten Heins and CFO Brian Bidulka sold about 51.1% of their batches of newly vested shares on 20 September, netting C$121 107.68 ($117 600) and C$40 386.79 ($39 200), respectively.
There is no indication of any wrongdoing by the executives or the company.
The shares were sold automatically by the trustee of BlackBerry's restricted stock unit (RSU) plan to cover taxes owed by the two executives as a result of the vested RSUs, BlackBerry spokesman Adam Emery said by e-mail.
RSUs are granted and then vest over three years on the anniversary date, said Emery, noting the details of the plan are disclosed in the management circular, available on BlackBerry's Web site.
In BlackBerry's fiscal 2013, which ended on 2 March, Heins received nearly $3 million in RSUs.
Filings on Canada's System for Electronic Disclosure by Insiders show Heins and Bidulka have sold a similar percentage of BlackBerry shares around the same time over the last several quarters.
The executives sold a similar amount of stock at C$6.8517 a share on 20 September last year.
BlackBerry declined to make the executives available for comment.
Based on Friday's Toronto closing price of C$9.08 a share, the sale netted the two men a combined $22 325.31 more than they would have received had they sold after BlackBerry's warning at about 3:15pm on Friday, 20 September.
Trading in the shares was halted just before the announcement and resumed at about 3:27pm.
The company said it expected to report an operating loss of nearly $1 billion for the quarter to late August.
The filings showed Heins sold 11 494 shares out of the 22 500 restricted stock units that vested on 19 September at C$10.5366 a share. Bidulka sold 3 833 shares of his 7 500 vested shares during the same period at the same price.
The shares fell almost 24% to C$8.25 after the warning on Friday, hitting their lowest level this year.
Both executives also sold 53.8% of 10 000 restricted stock units that vested on 20 September for C$8.51 a share on Monday, 23 September, the same day the company announced it had agreed to go private in a $4.7 billion deal, led by its biggest shareholder. The shares closed at C$9.08 that day in Toronto.
Shares of BlackBerry finished at C$8.78 on Tuesday.
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