Key points
- The advance notice listed more shares than he sold
- Six earlier sales all followed one steady pattern
- The sale followed a trading plan adopted in June
Palo Alto Networks (PANW) Chief Financial Officer Dipak Golechha sold 27,500 shares for $10.8 million on September 24, a filing added to our insider tracker on Monday shows. By dollar value, it was more than seven times his largest previous reported sale in records dating to 2022.
Golechha has sold stock about once a quarter, and his six preceding sales were each exactly 5,000 shares. Those brought in between $750,000 and $1.45 million. September's sale was 27,500 shares at a higher price, so the dollar amount jumped.
The Form 4 identifies the sale as a transaction under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted June 25. These plans establish trading instructions in advance, as we explain in our guide to Rule 10b5-1.
Two days before adopting that plan, Golechha sold 5,000 shares under an older plan adopted in December. The September transaction was his first reported sale under the June plan.
For officers, the cooling-off period runs until the later of 90 days after adoption or two business days after financial results for the adoption quarter are disclosed in the applicable periodic report, subject to a 120-day maximum. Palo Alto filed its annual report on September 10. The later date was September 23, 90 days after adoption. Golechha sold the next day.
That timing explains when trading could begin. It doesn't explain the larger sale or establish whether a date, price condition, or other instruction triggered it.
The notice covered more shares than he sold
Golechha's September 24 Form 144 covered a proposed sale of 35,000 shares, with a listed market value of $13.8 million. The notice identified the shares as coming from stock units acquired in December 2023. We explain the distinction between a proposed sale and a completed transaction in our Form 144 guide.
The Form 4 reports 27,500 shares sold, 7,500 fewer than the proposed amount in the Form 144. The notice alone doesn't establish that the remaining shares will be sold.
Golechha reported 117,750 shares held directly afterward, down from 145,250. The sale reduced that direct holding by 19%. At Monday's closing price of $392.09, the remaining stake was worth about $46 million, by our arithmetic.
Near its one-year high, alongside other sellers
Palo Alto Networks closed Monday within 1% of its highest close of the past year, $396.00 on August 13, and at more than double its $184.20 finish for 2025. The stock jumped 13.1% on September 14, when money moved into cybersecurity during the AI selloff, and it gained about 18% from September 11 to the day Golechha sold. His average price was $391.60.
He wasn't the only insider selling. Our tracker shows about $20.2 million of sales by Palo Alto Networks insiders in September, and the CFO's is more than half of that. Director Aparna Bawa sold 260 shares from a family trust on September 24 for $102,098. She had sold 1,500 shares on September 14 and 15 for about $562,000. Directors John Key and James Goetz sold $940,075 and $7.5 million of stock on September 14 and 17, respectively. None of the three directors' filings identified the sales as transactions under a Rule 10b5-1 plan.
A Form 4 records the trade and leaves the reason off the page. Every sale Golechha has reported since December 2023 ran under a plan, and this one did too. What changed is the size. The filing doesn't explain why this sale was larger than his previous ones. New Palo Alto Networks filings post to our PANW page as they arrive.
