TECO execs opt for profits

Many people may regret that they listened to the buy-and-hold advice of financial analysts and didn't trim their stock holdings before the recent market meltdown. But thanks to a bit of fortuitous timing, some executives at TECO Energy Inc., parent of Tampa Electric, managed to lock in enviable profits on their company stock holdings.

A two-month window during which TECO officials could exercise and sell option-linked shares happened to begin in April. The result: Tidy returns just ahead of a steep slide on Wall Street, and in TECO's stock price.

TECO chief financial officer Gordon Gillette exercised options on 23,318 shares May 6, then sold them for a net gain of $149,702. Senior vice president and general counsel Sheila McDevitt exercised options on 16,378 shares April 30, cashing them in for a gain of $106,693. Tampa Electric president John Ramil exercised options on 8,200 shares April 24 and sold them for a net take of $60,526.

Topping them was TECO chairman and chief executive Robert Fagan, who sold 126,239 option-linked and performance-based shares of TECO stock in April for a net gain of at least $1.45-million.

All of them sold for between $27 and $29 a share, just shy of the stock's 52-week high of $29.54 set last summer. That's not too shabby, considering that TECO's shares tumbled to a 52-week low of $18.59 on July 24. (The share price has since rebounded and finished last week at $22.40, down 51 cents.)

Fagan, Gillette, McDevitt and Ramil still maintain large holdings of company stock. In fact, TECO spokeswoman Laura Plumb says, they're required to hold at least three times the value of their annual salary in company stock. Fagan must keep at least five times his salary.

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