Executives at Burr-Brown Sold Stock Before Texas Instruments' Purchase Pact
Executives at Burr-Brown Corp. sold $11.7 million of their Burr-Brown stock in the month before Texas Instruments Inc. announced it would acquire the computerchip maker for $7.6 billion in stock.</br></br>Shares of the Tucson, Ariz., maker of analog chips used in camcorders, DVD players and hand-held computers, traded in a tight range from late March to early May, when the executives sold the shares. The May sales followed several months of insider sales.</br></br>From May 11 to May 22, four BurrBrown executives, including Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Syrus Madavi, Chief Operating Officer Kenneth Wolf and Chief Financial Officer Scott Blouin, sold more than 180,000 shares in the $55 to $67 range.</br></br>"It's not unusual to see insider selling around a deal that doesn't carry much premium over the insider sale price," said Robert Gabele, director of insider research at First Call/Thomson Financial. "What's unusual here is this insider selling occurred prior to a deal that resulted in a big premium."</br></br>Burr-Brown declined to comment on the sales.