Vole executive dumped shares

A TOP VOLE in charge of the Xbox 360 flogged $6.2 million worth of company stock just as the outfit was becoming aware that there were a few technical problems with the console, according to a report.

Market Watch alleged that while Microsoft was claiming that there were only "a few isolated problems", Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices unit applied to flog off his shares.

After the cash from the sale had been safely trousered, Robbie announced that almost every Xbox 360 in the land was faulty and it would cost Vole $1.15 billion to fix.

According to a review of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bach sold $6.2 million in stock in the period between May 2 and Thursday's announcement. He sold no shares for about eight months before that.

To be fair to Robbie, it is unlikely that he was waiting for his share cheque to clear before he made the announcement. Selling the shares off before the fiasco did not cause him to make much cash either.

Microsoft's share stayed at the same price and even went up a little.

A spokesVole said that Robbie's past trading was completely unrelated to last week's announcement. While Microsoft may have known about mounting Xbox problems for some months, a decision on how to deal with them financially was reached "much more recently" the spinner said.

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