Looking at the annual report, it appears GT has about 2.6 million options at a cost of about 46 cents per share, or roughly $1.12 million to exercise completely. Let's say hypothetically he was to purchase $250,000 worth or about 550,000 of those options with the post tax monies from the sale of stock.. He still must pay about $850,000 for the remainder. He had 75,000 that expired May 31, did he exercise those, if so that was a cash burn for him as well.
He is a 68 year old man, what happens to those options if he expires before they are exercised? GT has not been paid a king's ransom for his work, so it is not likely he has a spare $1 million or so in cash laying around. Selling some shares now enables him to take a partial tax hit this year, have some extra cash and buy back more shares by exercising some options. He waits til 2016 to sell more shares (at presumably a much higher price) and purchase the remaining options. Then at age 70 if he so chooses, he can partially cash out, preserving his wealth by fully exercising his existing options, while likely picking up more as compensation along the way, (or better yet, the company in 2016 is so fantastically successful that he gets stock grants to alleviate any potential issues his mortality might create by still holding options).
Strictly a scenario, but my bets are that whatever the reason for initiating a sale now, it has to do with his age and the sheer number of options he current has in waiting, as well as strengthening his financial position appropriately for a man of his age. And I am also guessing that within a few days, this will not be a topic of discussion.
