Monday, November 17, 2008

SEC v. Cuban

Looks as though Pittsburgh's richest son is in trouble...
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that it had charged Mark Cuban, the billionaire Internet entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, with insider trading for selling 600,000 shares of an Internet search engine company.

The S.E.C. said Mr. Cuban sold the stock in the company, Mamma.com, based on nonpublic information about an impending stock offering. The commission asserted that Mr. Cuban avoided losses in excess of $750,000 by selling his stock prior to the public announcement of the offering.
This all seems kind of silly. Given Cuban's wealth -- he's estimated to be worth about $2.3 billion (with a B) -- unloading stock to avoid losing 3/4 of a mil is kind of like Matthew tipping his prostitute four dollars instead of five because the guy still had most of his teeth. In other words, unnecessary. But funny. Very funny.

One would think someone of Cuban's stature would have done the quick math and realized he's likely to spend at least 750 grand on lawyers now that the SEC is coming for that ass. Not surprisingly, Cuban is denying all charges.

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