Investors love tracking insider trading. Edward Stack, chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer at Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE: DKS), just got some serious spending money put in his piggy bank after exercising a large block of stock options. So did his former spouse. Other insiders at the company had large option exercises as well.

Stack exercised options for some 900,000 shares with an average price of $11.44, per an SEC Filing today. He then had an average VWAP (volume weighted average price) on the sale of those shares of $50.85. The sum of nearly $10.3 million suddenly generated gross sale proceeds of more than $45.7 million on sales dates, which took place last week on August 16 and August 17.

Under a memorandum of understanding noted in this Form 4 filing, Stack’s former spouse is entitled to receive the economic benefit with respect to certain stock options exercisable for shares of common stock, and it said that one-half of the net after tax proceeds associated with the exercise and sale of shares underlying the vested stock option has been transferred in accordance with the terms of the memorandum.

Well, $45.7 million cut in half is still a sum that the bulk of the population cannot conceive making in their lives. Stack’s ownership is still listed as 10,364,111 shares under direct ownership and some 7,945,207 shares in indirect ownership.

Stack was not the only insider to exercise options and take home a nice bit of spending change. Senior VP Lauren Hobart exercised options for 6,382 shares, Kathryn Sutter exercised options for 86,250 shares and William Colombo exercised options for more than 74,000 shares.

Dick’s shares closed down 2.3% at $49.80 on Monday against a 52-week range of $30.72 to $52.00. If you want a good old-fashioned American success story about a business growing out of the shadow of what sounds like chump change now, here is the history of Dick’s.

JON C. OGG

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