Andrew Senn selling at $126.30 into a $127.00 takeout

On 8 September the President of Growth & Innovation at Integer Holdings sold 9,408 shares at $126.30, against KKR's agreed $127.00 cash price announced 3 August. The obvious reading is that he took certainty and gave up 70 cents to stop carrying deal risk.

I tried two contrarian angles and both failed. The first — that an insider selling below the deal price signals doubt about the close — does not survive the size: 9,408 shares is not a position anyone unwinds on a view about antitrust. The second — that the spread was mispriced and he left value behind — inverts the actual economics. The last 0.55% of a merger spread is the market's price for regulatory risk, financing risk and time, and an insider is the worst-placed person to hold it, because his job, options and shares all settle on the same event. Paying 0.55% to decorrelate is correct, not impatient. Consensus wins, and the mechanic is the most directly transferable thing in this edition.