Fresh off cashing in a further $13.2m in shares overnight, Scorpio Tankers president Robert Bugbee tells TradeWinds he is done with a selling spree that saw him pocket $45.4m on the week.
“I’ve sold all the shares that I want to sell. I still maintain a significant majority of the shares I owned prior to selling,” Bugbee said in an interview on Friday.
“I’m long-term confident in the success of the company and we’re watching the spot market continue to improve even post my sales.
“However, it’s been a long road with STNG. I was happy to put dollars on the table in the toughest times and the stock has gone up sixfold since the fourth quarter of 2021.”
Bugbee spoke, however, of making a personal decision within the context of a business known for its volatility.
“In an industry that has proven to have both upside and downside event risks that are most often surprises, for personal reasons, it was the right thing to do to secure some of the gains that I’ve made,” Bugbee said.
Bugbee’s sale of an additional 203,000 shares overnight means he has parted with about 703,000 units in the week. The executive was reported to own more than 1m shares at Scorpio’s annual report in March, although that may not be a full accounting of the total before this week’s transactions.
In normal times, one might expect fellow Scorpio investors to be spooked by Bugbee’s cash-out in tandem with a $27m sale by Scorpio chief executive Emanuele Lauro.
But before a 1% drop in share price to $64.92 in Friday morning trading in New York, the stock has held up well. Thursday’s close of $65.62 was slightly higher than Scorpio’s price when the week started, and investors traded 3m shares on the day compared to the average 1m.
Bugbee found humour in just how little his trading activity had affected the stock.
“Oh my god, my ego’s been bruised this week as the stock continues to go up on my sales,” he quipped.
On a more serious note, Bugbee said he had received nothing but congratulations from the company’s biggest investors, who recognised his support for the product tanker giant during lean times.
“I’ve sold the stock through a period where I was confident that the market was very strong and the outlook and fundamentals were very strong,” Bugbee said.
