Aren’t SEC filings fun? According to this one,
On March 24, 2008, JPMorgan Chase acquired 11,500,000 shares of Common Stock in the open market. The aggregate purchase price of $140,724,350 was paid out of working capital.
That works out at a price of $12.24 per share! Or, to put it another way, a 22.4% premium to JP Morgan’s official bid price.
The following day, Jimmy Cayne sold 5,658,591 shares at $10.84 apiece: his entire stake in the firm.
One wonders why, if JP Morgan wanted to buy up shares in order to maximize the likelihood of the deal going through, they didn’t do so when the stock was in the $4 to $5 range.
One also wonders why Cayne didn’t just sell his stake directly to JPM: both of them would have been better off. Although that might not be legal, I don’t know.