STEELE SALLY A 4

What Happened

• Sally A. Steele, a director of Community Financial System, Inc. (CBU), exercised 4,000 option-derived shares at $23.04 each (cost $92,160) on Feb 3, 2026 and sold the 4,000 shares in the open market the same day for a weighted-average price of $64.12, generating gross sale proceeds of about $256,480. The filing also reports the related disposition of the derivative instrument tied to those shares (reported at $0).
• This is effectively a cashless exercise followed by an immediate sale (common practice when insiders convert options and sell the resulting shares). Net proceeds before taxes and fees are approximately $164,320 (sale proceeds minus exercise cost).

Key Details

• Transaction date: 2026-02-03 (filed 2026-02-05 — timely filing).
• Exercise (M): 4,000 shares acquired @ $23.04 = $92,160.
• Sale (S): 4,000 shares disposed @ weighted avg $64.12 = $256,480; prices in the sale ranged from $64.00 to $64.255 (see footnote F1).
• Derivative disposition (M): 4,000 units reported disposed @ $0 (represents conversion/surrender of the derivative instrument upon exercise).
• Shares owned after transaction: not specified in the provided excerpt of the filing.
• Footnotes of note:
  • F1: Sale price is a weighted average; seller can provide breakdown on request.
  • F2–F3: The filer also holds deferred/phantom stock units under the company’s LTIP that settle in common stock and include dividend reinvestment credits; these are separate from the exercised options.

Context

• Because the exercised shares were sold the same day, this appears to be a cashless exercise with immediate disposition rather than a buy-and-hold purchase. Such transactions are common and do not by themselves indicate a change in long-term insider sentiment.