Stuart Varney: BP exec's husband guilty of insider trading after eavesdropping on wife's merger deal
During his "My Take," Monday, "Varney & Co." host Stuart Varney discussed the story of Tyler Loudon, a Houston man who made $1.7 million from insider trading after listening in on his wife's work-from-home calls while she was handling a potential acquisition.
STUART VARNEY: This is a story of bad judgment, insider trading, and eventually divorce.
Tyler Loudon worked from home in Houston.
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His wife worked from home. Their home offices were just feet apart.
Tyler Loudon heard his wife discussing a merger between the company she worked for, BP, and a truck stop company, TravelCenters of America.
Without telling her, Tyler liquidated over $2 million worth of stock and put the money into 46,450 shares of TravelCenters of America.
In February last year, the merger was announced and TravelCenters stock went up 70%.
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Tyler made a $1.7 million profit, but the authorities were suspicious and started asking questions.
Tyler told his wife what he had done. According to court filings, she was "stunned," and told her supervisor.
She was placed on administrative leave and later terminated.
Tyler has agreed to return all his profit. He faces a big fine and maybe prison time.
His wife filed for divorce last summer.
This raises the question of risk when working from home.
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Many professionals handle sensitive and valuable information in the confines of an office.
Post-pandemic, working from home, the spouse and children can more easily access that information.
You get hold of non-public information, act on it, and you have made an illegal profit.
This is not an argument about no more at-home work, but about the realization that information has to be kept totally under wraps no matter where you are.