Let’s take a guess that Daniel Ek had a memorable holiday.
Spotify’s Swedish co-founder and CEO cashed out US$27.72 million in company stock on December 23rd. This will significantly increase the budget for late festive gifts for everyone.
In fact, Ek cashed out about $93 million in SPOT stock sales throughout December, according to SEC filings reviewed by MBW.
These sales occurred over three transactions, with approximately $37 million deposited on December 4th, followed by $28.3 million deposited on December 11th, and $27.7 million cashed out on December 23rd. I did.
Regular readers of MBW will know that we were closely monitoring Ek and his management team’s sale of Spotify stock in 2024. During the year, SPOT’s stock price rose to record levels on the New York Stock Exchange.
In late November, Ek and Spotify co-founder Martin Lorenzon calculated that they had jointly cashed out about $840 million by 2024.
Considering Ek’s December sales, that number increases by nearly $1 billion to $932.8 million for the full year of 2024.
In total, Ek liquidated shares with a total market value of $376 million in 2024.
Mr. Lorenzon’s stock sales, often done through his Rosello company, amounted to $556.8 million through 2024 (unlike Ek, Mr. Lorenzon did not cash out any of his shares in December). .
Another executive who will benefit in 2024 thanks to his Spotify stock is Barry McCarthy.
Last year, Mr. McCarthy, Spotify’s former CFO (and continuing director), liquidated shares with a market capitalization of more than $50 million, according to SEC filings.
Mr. McCarthy joined Mr. Ek in selling some of his shares in December, selling 21,000 shares of Spotify common stock for $10.17 million.
Dusty Jenkins, Spotify’s chief communications officer, also cashed out some of his stock in December, selling 10,399 shares for a market value of $5.22 million.
Add these and Daniel Ek’s December transactions to the current tally, and you’ll see that Spotify executives, including members of the company’s board of directors, have cashed out a cumulative total of about $1.25 billion in 2024.
Why was there such a flurry of insider stock selling activity at Spotify last year? You already know the answer: a wild rise in SPOT’s stock price in 2024.
At the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange at the end of 2023, Spotify’s market capitalization was worth about $36.6 billion.
By the time the New York Stock Exchange closed in late December 2024, its market capitalization had risen to a whopping US$94 billion.
Spotify’s market capitalization instantly exceeded $100 billion in early December, as Spotify’s individual stock price exceeded $500 for the first time in history.
At the time of publication (January 6th), Spotify’s stock price on the New York Stock Exchange was $466.67, giving the company a market capitalization of $93.75 billion.
Source: Google Finance
Spotify is scheduled to release Calendar’s Q4 2024 financial results on Tuesday, February 4th.
When announcing its third-quarter 2024 results in November, Spotify expected to post quarterly revenue of 4.1 billion euros and quarterly operating profit of 481 million euros in the fourth quarter.
If Spotify meets that guidance, it would have annual revenue of approximately 15.5 billion euros and annual operating profit of 1.37 billion euros. world music business
