Gates To Hawk $135.4 Million In MSFT

Bill Gates reportedly plans to offload Microsoft Corp.
[NASDAQ:MSFT] stock valued at $135.4 million, according to a filing
on Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A Reuters report said Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chairman
intends to soon sell 2 million shares of common stock. The last time
Gates went to market, Sept. 8, he sold 1 million MSFT shares for
$69.7 million. Over the past three months, Gates has traded 10
million shares for $702.4 million, according to SEC documents. The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has sold 22.865 million shares for
$1.6 billion.

Reuters said a spokeswoman stated that Gates sold the shares for
portfolio diversification purposes and noted that, as of Sept. 8, he
held more than 731.7 million shares in the software giant. The report
added that separate SEC filings showed that two other Microsoft
officials plan to sell additional stock. Peter Gross, a senior vice
president, and Brad Chase, a company insider, plan to sell a combined
75,000 shares for a total of $4.6 million. Microsoft shares closed
$1-1/4 higher on Monday at $69-1/2. The stock has posted a 52-week
high of $119-15/16 and a low of $48-7/16.