Schlitz Lei Zhang 4

What Happened
Lei Zhang, Vice President and President, Global Products & Solutions at Johnson Controls (JCI), exercised stock options and sold shares on May 8, 2026. Zhang exercised 37,753 options at $66.77 ($2,520,768) and 25,018 options at $53.52 ($1,338,963), for a total cash cost of about $3.86 million to acquire 62,771 shares. On the same day Zhang sold 88,809 shares in multiple open-market transactions, with aggregate proceeds of about $12.52 million (weighted-average sale prices reported).

Key Details

• Transaction date: May 8, 2026; Form 4 filed May 12, 2026 (timely within the two-business-day reporting window).
• Option exercises (code M): 37,753 shares at $66.77 and 25,018 shares at $53.52 (total acquired 62,771 shares; total paid ≈ $3,859,731).
• Open-market sales (code S): total 88,809 shares for total proceeds ≈ $12,521,445. Individual reported weighted-average prices and associated sale blocks:
  • 48,070 shares — weighted avg $141.07 (sales ranged $140.39–$141.38) [F1]
  • 14,701 shares — weighted avg $141.55 (sales ranged $141.39–$142.05) [F2]
  • 25,138 shares — weighted avg $140.51 (sales ranged $140.15–$141.13) [F3]
  • 900 shares — weighted avg $141.27 (sales ranged $141.24–$141.37) [F4]
• The filing also lists two derivative-format dispositions at $0 for 37,753 and 25,018 shares; these reflect reporting details tied to the option exercises (the filing does not specify the operational reason for the $0 entries).
• Shares owned after the transactions are not shown in the summary provided here; see the full Form 4 for the reported beneficial ownership amount.

Context

• This pattern — exercising options and selling shares the same day — is commonly a cashless or immediate-sale exercise: the insider realizes gains from option exercise while converting some or all of the resulting shares to cash. The filing is factual and does not state Zhang’s motivation.
• Sales are routine insider transactions to monetize option gains or diversify; purchases are typically more indicative of a direct bullish signal.