Microsoft Corp co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen and several other top Microserfs gave themselves a little pre-holiday present – $417m in cash from the sale last month of a tiny piece of their equity in the company – according to recent Security and Exchange Commission filings. The dollar total is a new record for insider trading at Microsoft in a single month, reports ClieNT Server News. Allen cashed in 1.9m shares – 3.6% of his holdings – at prices ranging from $142 to $157.50. That leaves him with 101.96m shares today, following a two-for-one split on December 9. There’s no huge mystery in what Allen is doing with the money his present to himself is the Seattle Seahawks football team. Gates sold 0.6% of his holdings, getting $137.50 to $148.44 each for 800,000 pre-split shares. The chairman still has 278.2m shares left post-split. Even junior executives got in on the act, illustrating just how lucrative Redmond’s stock option plan can be. Senior vice president Brad Silverberg bought 30,000 shares he had options on at $10.11 each and immediately sold them at $140.87 for a tidy $3.9m profit. In all, insiders cashed in 2.84m shares worth $417m. Just before Christmas, Microsoft shares had closed at 84.875, which was down slightly from the 52-week high of $85.25.
