Radio One CEO Alfred Liggins is trying to reassure shareholders that recent stock sales by the company’s two top executives shouldn’t be a reason for panic. He issued a statement that the stock sales that he and board Chair Cathy Hughes made were the result of a transaction arranged with a broker two years ago which required the shares to be sold in late April. "Ms. Hughes and I want to affirmatively allay any fears that we were selling into the stock’s current weakness," Liggins said.
SEC filings show that Liggins sold 375,000 shares of Class D non-voting stock and Hughes, his mother, sold 500,000 shares. All were sold at a price of $1.06 each. Both still own millions of shares of Radio One stock, spread across Class A, B, C and D shares. The two own all of the company’s super-voting Class B shares and have never sold any of those.
According to Liggins, the recent transactions were the result of variable pre-paid forward sales transactions executed on April 25, 2006 in which the executives agreed with a brokerage firm to sell certain shares on a fixed date. At the time of the arrangement, the two pledged shares to the broker with all or a portion of the shares to be sold at the end of a two year period depending on the stock price.
"These sales by a broker were the result of the expiration of certain forward sales transactions initiated two years ago. We want to assure all of our security holders that we stand firmly committed to Radio One and these transactions were isolated sales triggered solely by historical events," Liggins said.
