But that is all in the past, although the misery continues. Now it has been discovered that a former Dow executive, (the VP of Information Systems) partook in some insider trading on that knowledge. The VP became aware of the pending purchase of Rohm and Haas via his girlfriend who was an executive assistant to Dow's CFO (!). And of course, he told his buddy who then told his broker. Over a million dollars in profits were generated from this little tidbit of information, which is quite understandable as Dow did pay a nice premium for the Rohm & Haas stock.
How someone who is smart enough to be the VP of IS would be stupid enough to not think that the SEC would catch up with him and his cohorts is beyond me. I imagine that the SEC probably became aware of the trades by look first at the broker, so there is likely plenty of love lost between the two friends over why the friend had to flap his lips to his broker. And there is plenty of love lost between the VP and the girlfriend who is now the VP's wife. She and her husband have both undoubtedly lost their jobs and will have an impossible time finding anything similar in payscale again ("Do you want fries with that?" "Welcome to Walmart!" ). She also must be ruing the day that she started flapping her lips over the whole matter.
As Ben Franklin once said, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. In this case, you had four people, all of them very much alive. Imagine the elation they felt when they first got the money; imagine the pain and suffering they are now feeling. To quote my fellow Minnesotan Marge Gunderson,
"And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it."
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