Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is continuing to reduce his stock portfolio in the company he founded, selling off seven million shares since the beginning of the month.
Records from the US Securities and Exchange Commission show that Gates started selling his stock on 3 August, when he sold two million shares at $US24.17 per share, then making four additional sales through all of last week.
But even after the sale of his shares, he still holds over 726 million shares in the company, worth about $US17 billion in total.
The sale comes as Microsoft shares reached the $US24 point for the first time in months, boosted by the recent search deal with Yahoo that will see the Microsoft Bing engine power all search traffic on Yahoo websites.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
