Sam check me out, listen; a company (Company X) has shares traded by investors, right? Lets say, 6 billion shares. Company X has 11 billion shares all together, right? But only 6 billion of those are affected by market prices & investor sentiment & whatever technical market indicator you use. Now those 6 billion shares are the MAXIMUM, the market is allowed to have; doesn't have to technically start out with 6 billion, but that's the maximum short-sellers / long buyers can use to trade. The other 5 billion shares of the 11 billion A/S, is UNTOUCHED, by the market. It belongs to company X. It will CONTINUE to belong to company X. Hypothetically speaking, the 6 billion shares circulate the market, no more than 6 billion, end of story. As long as traders control the price - the O/S may change, but it will NOT, can NOT, and does NOT affect the float. Why? Because 6 billion is the MAXIMUM amount of shares to circulate the public market. Glad we made that clear.
Now if Company X wants to put their 5 billion shares into the already 6 billion share float, the simple answer is they can't. Ok? There's no pump & dump or 'open market buyback' with the company's shares. With shares in the float, there is, there's plenty of schemes one can imagine that revolve around public marketable shares. There aren't with restricted / preferred shares; if there was, it'd be issuing restricted shares for debt a company knows it can't pay back or mergers or anything your mind can imagine that has 00000000 to do with the market price of market shares that the market controls. In THIS case, you see ownership of HAON's CEO go from 13% of the A/S, down to 6%, while the O/S goes from 45% to 92% of the entire A/S. So lets ask ourselves:
Is he issuing them to himself? No, because his ownership wouldn't decrease in any way/ shape / or form
Is he issuing them to the public? Sure seems like it. That might explain the selling pressure, but does it explain how an increase in the O/S surges to 92% of the entire SS? Absolutely not. Not at all. Fishy, huh?
What if, (since the public float is maxed out; 4.9B O/S vs. 6B float as of 02/28) the CEO hires a broker to short sell his equity, borrow shares out of HIS stake, for CEO to eventually buy them back? .........................Unless it's really that complicated, no; CEO wouldn't literally give away his equity. His ownership % of the company decreased, but what does that tell you if the O/S surges to almost take up the entire A/S? It's the same reason you'd save $ for a car, then have someone you trust put it in a safe place for the time being so you don't blow it / lose it / get robbed etc., So a private broker/counsel might 'borrow' his shares, only if 1) they had an intention of being "bought back." & 2) if they had collateral equity to ensure the company had the incentive for the offering of securities (technically, to themselves, just in the public market). It's same concept of a 'cashless buyback'. A textbook description of it.
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