Peter Thiel, a co-founder and current chair of data analytics company Palantir (PLTR), has sold nearly $600 million of company stock.
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According to regulatory filings, Thiel sold 16,178,415 Palantir shares in recent days at an average price of $36.90 each for total proceeds of $597 million. The trades were undertaken by Thiel under a pre-arranged plan known as a “Rule 10b5-1” and sold through an investment vehicle he owns.
Following the latest stock sale, Thiel still owns more than 46 million shares of PLTR stock that’s worth $1.72 billion based on the current share price of just under $37. Thiel, along with fellow co-founders Alex Karp and Stephen Cohen, controls 49.99% of the voting shares at Palantir, a company that specializes in software for data analytics and works primarily for governments around the world, including the U.S.
Palantir’s Soaring Stock Price
According to the plan Thiel filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), he is not done selling his holdings of PLTR stock. In all, Thiel has filed to sell as much as $1 billion worth of Palantir shares by December 31, 2025, or earlier. Rule 10b5-1 plans automatically execute trades when preset conditions, such as price, volume, and timing, are met.
Such plans are used to remove conflicts and ensure that senior executives of publicly traded companies do not benefit from nonpublic information when selling or buying a stock. Thiel, a venture capitalist who also co-founded PayPal (PYPL), has an estimated net worth of $11.20 billion, according to Bloomberg News.
The stock sales come as Palantir’s share price soars, having gained 115% this year. PLTR stock has risen 20% in the last month alone on news that it was being added to the benchmark S&P 500 index on Sept. 23. Palantir went public in October 2020. Since then the stock has risen 300%.
Is PLTR Stock a Buy?
Palantir stock has a consensus Hold rating among 16 Wall Street analysts. That rating is based on four Buy, six Hold, and six Sell recommendations made in the last three months. The average price target on PLTR stock of $27.67 implies 25.15% downside risk from current levels.
