GoPro CEO to sell portion of stake as part of $800m offering by tech company

Wearable camera maker GoPro Inc’s chief executive, Nicholas Woodman, plans to sell a portion of his stake as part of an $800m offering of the company’s shares.

The offering of Class A common shares is expected to start in the next couple of weeks, a company spokesman told Reuters.

GoPro’s shares fell as much as 5.1% before easing back a little to trade down 3.8% at $76.04 on Monday.

The lock-up period on the stock, which listed in June, expires on 22 December, allowing employees and early investors to sell shares of the company. Typically, on the day a lock-up expires, prices tend to fall as a large number of shares become available for trading.

The company said the offering was expected to soften the blow of the lock-up expiration on the share price.

“To help further this goal, larger shareholders that participate in this offering will be signing a new 90-day lock-up agreement,” Woodman wrote in an email to employees.

GoPro’s shares took a hit last month when the company said 5.8m Class A shares had been exempted from lock-up as Woodman and his wife transferred them to their charitable organisation.

GoPro, which expects to raise about $100m from the offering, did not say how many shares would be sold by the company or stakeholders.

Based on Friday’s closing, the offer size would be about 10 million shares, representing about 8% of the outstanding shares.

“I plan to sell a portion of my holdings in GoPro, but no one should misunderstand my commitment to the company or our vision,” Woodman said in the email.

GoPro sold 17.8m Class A shares in its initial public offering in June, excluding over-allotment options.

Up to Friday’s close, the stock had more than tripled since it went public.