Stock Option Compensation

So I checked my company's stock this morning on google finance, as I do every morning, to see the related news. There was an article about one of our C-Level executives selling a large chunk (or so I thought) of company stock, cash value of about $2M.

I had a one on one meeting with him in his office already scheduled for this afternoon and I almost asked about his move but decided it would be poor manners to ask about his personal finances. So I got the secretary to give me our company's initiating coverage from a bank that just started analyst coverage earlier this year and sure enough, it listed the amount of stock he owned. He's got $30M worth of company stock ownership so selling $2M was chump change.

My question is (1) is this compensation normal for a company with a couple billion in revenue and (2) can he just cash out all his shares and walk or is there a clause preventing him from dumping that many shares on the market and then buying a mansion in bermuda?

3 Comments
 

1) It would have been astonishly stupid to have brought this up in conversation unless you are a lifelong friend, and even then it may not be appropriate. Do you lack common sense? 2) What compensation? You describe his cumulative ownership, not what he got in a particular period of time. Given uncertainty in his tenure with the company, the stock performance during that time, etc. this could be far too little or way too much 3) You can't stop someone from retiring. Are you asking if he can sell this and not retire? That's up to him and the company (plus the SEC, at least with respect to the particular windows of time in which he might sell) 4) Stock or stock options? Those are different things

 
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