Charter Communications Inc. disclosed Wednesday that Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas Rutledge sold 88,000 of the broadband communications services company’s shares in the open market over the past two days, to raise about $59.4 million. The weighted average price of the stock sales was at $674.82, according to a MarketWatch analysis, or just above Tuesday’s closing price of $674.74. The Form 4 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed that Rutledge sold 43,106 at an average price of $674.3398 on Nov. 22 and sold 44,894 shares at $675.2855 on Nov. 23. The shares sold represented about 26.5% of his Rutledge’s stake in the company, according to FactSet data, but Charter said that does not include options to buy company stock that are beneficially owned by Rutledge. The stock, which slipped 0.1% in premarket trading, has dropped 14.9% over the past three months through Tuesday, while the SPDR Communication Services Select Sector ETF has lost 6.5% and the S&P 500 has gained 4.6%.
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