By Ross Ibbetson For Dailymail.com21:50 10 Mar 2023, updated 22:52 10 Mar 2023

The CEO of Silicon Valley Bank sold $3.57m of stock in a pre-planned, automated sell-off two weeks before it collapsed – and the CFO ditched $575,000 the same day.

Greg Becker sold 12,451 shares at an average price of $287.42 each on February 27. The price plunged to just $39.49 in premarket Friday before the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) seized the bank’s assets.

The day his sale went through, Becker bought the same number of shares using stock options priced at $105.18 each, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The options, which allow you to buy a company’s stock at a set price, were due to expire May 2. The transactions were made through a trust that he controls, using a trading plan that he had set up on January 26, records show.

SVB’s CFO Daniel Beck sold 2,000 shares at $287.59 per share on the same day as his boss. He set up his trading plan on January 24.

Company insiders often use such plans to execute trades when certain conditions are met, such as price and volume. This serves to remove any potential that they may use their knowledge to beat the market.

There is no suggestion of any impropriety by either Becker or Beck.

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