California Water Service (CWT) SVP Michael Mares Sells Shares for Taxes

What Happened

• Michael S. Mares Jr., Senior Vice President of Operations at California Water Service Group (CWT), had shares withheld to satisfy tax withholding obligations tied to vested restricted stock awards. The Form 4 reports 69 shares withheld on 2026-09-04 at $50.03 ($3,452) and 67 shares withheld on 2026-09-05 at $50.03 ($3,352), for a total of 136 shares worth about $6,804.
• This was not an open-market sale for cash gain but a routine tax-withholding (transaction code F) related to RSA vesting.

Key Details

• Transaction dates/prices: 2026-09-04 — 69 shares @ $50.03 ($3,452); 2026-09-05 — 67 shares @ $50.03 ($3,352).
• Total shares withheld: 136; total value ≈ $6,804.
• Shares owned after transaction: not disclosed in the provided Form 4.
• Footnotes: F1 = shares withheld for tax from RSA granted March 4, 2025; F2 = shares withheld for tax from RSA granted June 5, 2024.
• Filing: Report filed with accession 0001763820-26-000008 on 2026-09-08. The filing itself does not flag timeliness issues in the supplied data; check EDGAR for official timeliness status if needed.

Context

• Tax-withholding via share surrender (cashless withholding) is a common administrative step when restricted stock vests and generally does not signal the insider is selling shares for investment reasons.
• The amounts here are small (~$6.8K) relative to a public utility’s market capitalization and are routine compensation-related transactions rather than directional insider bets.