West Michael L 4

What Happened

• Michael L. West, President of Moody's Investors Service, exercised stock options to acquire 3,327 shares (2,139 shares at $325.99 and 1,188 shares at $295.33) on 2026-02-26, paying about $1.05M in exercise cost. He then sold the same 3,327 shares the same day in open-market transactions for total proceeds of about $1.58M.
• The exercise-plus-sale effectively functioned as a cashless exercise: shares were acquired via option exercise and immediately sold. The filing also shows related derivative dispositions reported at $0.00 (these reflect conversion/cancellation of the derivative instruments).

Key Details

• Transaction date: 2026-02-26.
• Option exercises (acquisitions): 2,139 shares @ $325.99 (total $697,293) and 1,188 shares @ $295.33 (total $350,852).
• Open-market sales (dispositions): 2,139 shares @ weighted avg $474.19 (total $1,014,298) and 1,188 shares @ weighted avg $473.94 (total $563,042). Total sale proceeds ≈ $1,577,340.
• Net cash from the round-trip (sales minus exercise cost) ≈ $529,195.
• Footnotes: F1 — reported sale prices are weighted averages; actual trade prices ranged $474.1801–$474.405. F2 — the options vesting schedule is one-fourth each year beginning on the date indicated (as noted in the filing).
• Shares owned after the transaction: not specified in the information provided in this summary.
• Filing timeliness: Form 4 filed 2026-02-27 for transactions on 2026-02-26 (appears timely).

Context

• For retail investors: exercises followed by same-day sales are commonly used to realize value from vested options and are generally considered routine liquidity events rather than a directional signal about company prospects.
• The filing shows both the option exercise (derivative transaction) and immediate sale of the resulting shares; this is often described as a cashless exercise.