Amazon's Bezos nets $135M in rare stock sale

A chief executive who sells 2 percent of his company stock hardly seems like a big deal

Except when the CEO is Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com's largest shareholder, who recently sold a chunk of stock for the first time in years.

The Seattle Internet giant disclosed this past week that Bezos sold 1.85 million shares Feb. 15 at $73.21 apiece — for a jaw-dropping $135.4 million.

The sale leaves Bezos with 99.3 million shares, still nearly a quarter of Amazon's total.

Bezos made the sale under Securities and Exchange Commission rule 10b5-1, which allows executives to set up a sales plan in advance to avoid the perception of insider trading.

Details of such plans aren't publicly disclosed, so it's not clear whether further transactions might be in the works.

An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on the sale.

Bezos periodically has given away shares to undisclosed charitable organizations, but more than three years had passed since his last significant sales.

During November 2004, he sold 950,000 shares at prices from $34.71 to $40.95, clearing nearly $36 million.

In February 2001, he sold 800,000 shares for $11.7 million, raising some eyebrows in the business press because he did so shortly before the release of an analyst's negative report on Amazon.

The latest windfall could come in handy for Bezos, whose 2006 base salary was a mere $81,840.

Amazon's stock has traded between $37.05 and $100.82 in the past year; Bezos sold a little above the midpoint of that range.

Based on Friday's closing share price of $72.08, Bezos' remaining Amazon holdings are worth almost $7.2 billion.

— Amy Martinez

Coffee clash on Capitol Hill (The one in D.C.)

Could substituting one Seattle coffee for another be enough to drive a congressman from office?

Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., spilled the beans to The Washington Post's Sleuth blog, claiming that he's retiring because the coffee in the House of Representatives cafeteria was switched from Starbucks to Pura Vida.

"I can take a lot in the minority: losing votes, not being a subcommittee chairman, but not being able to get Starbucks is unacceptable," he said.

Shadegg has picked up his afternoon Starbucks in the cafeteria for 14 years, writes the Post and isn't happy about the switch: "Spare me! There's got to be a kickback somewhere."

Pura Vida actually won the cafeteria concession, as The Seattle Times reported earlier this month, after a taste test by about 40 House staffers who sampled Fair Trade-certified coffee from Pura Vida, Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Bluebird Artisanal Coffee Roasters.

And Shadegg actually is leaving for reasons unrelated to beverage availability.

The Washington Post says the speculation is that he positioning to run for the Senate, "banking on Sen. John McCain winning the White House and his Senate seat opening up in 2010."

No word yet on what coffee will be served at his fundraisers.

— Rami Grunbaum

Comments? Send them to Rami Grunbaum: rgrunbaum@seattletimes.com or 206-464-8541