Senator Reports $1.4 Million in Stock Trades During Coronavirus Panic
March 31 2020 - 11:30PM
Dow Jones News
By James V. Grimaldi, Lindsay Wise and Tom McGinty
Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her husband purchased and sold about
$1.4 million in stocks in the past month amid the coronavirus
market panic. They suffered losses but limited the investment
damage through some timely trades, according to a summary provided
by the Georgia Republican's re-election campaign.
Ms. Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, who is chairman
of the New York Stock Exchange, ended up with more paper losses on
their stock purchases than they saved in dumping shares, according
to a Wall Street Journal review of the senator's financial
disclosure.
In the latest filing, Ms. Loeffler reported that she and her
husband bought about $590,000 of stock and sold about $845,000 of
stock from Feb. 18 through March 13. If they had held the shares
they sold through Monday, the stock would have been valued at
$86,000 less than what they sold it for, according to the Journal
analysis.
The stocks they bought declined even more in value since they
purchased them, giving the couple paper losses of $102,000 through
Monday.
Ms. Loeffler's stock trades have been a hot topic in the special
election for the seat to which Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appointed
the businesswoman in December when Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson
retired. A spokesman for Ms. Loeffler called criticism of the
transactions a baseless political attack and said that all daily
trades are handled by professional investment advisers without the
senator's prior knowledge.
The prepandemic stock sales of at least one other senator,
Richard Burr of North Carolina, is under Federal Bureau of
Investigation scrutiny, but Ms. Loeffler's spokesman said federal
investigators haven't contacted her. Ms. Loeffler's disclosure
report was reviewed by the Journal before she planned to file it
Tuesday night.
Ms. Loeffler and her husband, the founder and chief executive of
Intercontinental Exchange Inc., also exercised options to buy
shares in the company, which provides their primary compensation,
and sold them for about $10.9 million. This is a common practice
for the couple. In the past three years, they have sold about $55
million of company shares for expenses and portfolio
diversification, a campaign spokesman said. Ms. Loeffler and Mr.
Sprecher have an estimated net worth of at least $500 million,
making her the richest member of Congress.
Mr. Sprecher also closed out a series of stock options in which
he would have had to pay his counterparties if the prices of the
stocks slipped below specific price targets. When he exited from
those positions, most of the stocks' prices were well above those
strike prices. If he had kept those options through Monday, he
would have theoretically owed some of his counterparties $133,000,
according to the Journal analysis.
Ms. Loeffler and her husband sold shares of retail companies
Lululemon Athletica Inc., Ross Stores Inc. and AutoZone Inc., just
as they began to drop in the market decline, while the couple's
purchases included about $115,000 each in DuPont de Nemours Inc.
and Chevron Corp., which both declined in the past month.
Ms. Loeffler is battling to hold on to her Senate seat. A GOP
rival, Rep. Doug Collins, a four-term congressman, began hammering
her over her stock trades in TV appearances and on social media
after they were disclosed.
"People are losing their jobs, their businesses, their
retirements, and even their lives and Kelly Loeffler is profiting
off their pain?" Mr. Collins tweeted March 20. "I'm sickened just
thinking about it."
Stephen Lawson, a spokesman for Ms. Loeffler's campaign, texted
in a statement, "These false attacks against Senator Loeffler --
from the Left, from fake news media, from career politicians -- are
exactly why people are fed up with Washington."
When Mr. Kemp appointed Ms. Loeffler, he hoped the wealthy
business executive and political newcomer could win over key
suburban and women voters as the state experiences an influx of
younger people and minorities, many from the North.
Ms. Loeffler, 49 years old, is self-funding her Senate bid -- an
attractive prospect for national Republicans who would rather focus
their resources on more at-risk incumbents in Colorado, Arizona and
North Carolina. Now Ms. Loeffler's wealth could become a political
liability.
The entry into the contest of Mr. Collins, a Trump loyalist who
had also sought the Senate appointment, alarmed some Republicans in
Georgia and Washington worried that an intraparty battle could hurt
chances of holding the seat, and could put the GOP's control of the
Senate at risk.
Write to Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com and Tom McGinty at
tom.mcginty@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 31, 2020 23:15 ET (03:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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