Respected investor and web-browser pioneer, Marc Andreessen who is also the owner of a joint venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz had sold nearly 75 percent of his stake in Facebook ahead of the holiday season. According to the regulatory filings, the total shares sold by Andreessen is about $160 million.
Re/code revealed the information citing that around 1.5 million shares of Facebook shares was sold by him within two weeks starting on October 30. Besides selling his stake, Andreessen also had sold off 90 percent of his class A shares.
He is among the early investors for Facebook and has been its board of director since 2008. The move is unexpected as the share is currently traded at a higher value since its IPO day. As reported by Bloomberg, the share is currently traded at 40 percent higher compared to last year.
Although almost 75 percent of the shares has been sold, Andreessen was reported to still own 378,000 shares of Class B share. According to a source, the shares were sold using the Rule 10b5-1 trading plan and no insider trading took place during the transaction hence eliminating any possible price manipulation.
Andreessen is also notable for its firm decision to Mark Zuckerberg not to sell Facebook to Yahoo when the company was offered an acquisition worth $1 billion back in 2006. According to Business Insider, Andreessen told an interviewer that "Every single person involved in Facebook wanted Mark to take the Yahoo offer. The psychological pressure they put on this 22-year-old was intense. Mark and I really bonded in that period, because I told him, 'Don't sell, don't sell, don't sell!'"
Besides that, Andreessen is also aggressive in the social media himself. He has been vocal in telling others regarding his opinion about the current trend in technology stocks in the social media, particularly Twitter. According to him, technology bubble is a myth and there are no such thing occurring at the moment.
Facebook reported an earnings that beat analysts expectation for its third-quarter earnings ending early November. The company reported its third quarter sales of $4.5 billion and $0.57 earnings per share which is 11.3 percent higher compared to last quarter. With its 1.55 billion active users, Facebook is expected to grow more in the next few years as more people is slowly adapting the website into its daily life.
Neither Andreessen or his representative is available for comment regarding the latest news. However, analysts estimated that there will be no direct influence regarding the selling to the shares price as Facebook is growing at great level right now.
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