Donald E. Graham liquidates Cable One on a fixed ten-day schedule Cable One, Inc. (NYSE: CABO) · chairman emeritus, Graham Holdings
- What he did
- Sold across five consecutive sessions, 13–19 October 2026, through seven vehicles. Beneficial ownership fell 390,361 → 282,882 shares, 6.88% → 4.99% of 5,673,925 shares outstanding. Amendment No. 7 states that on 19 October he ceased to be a five percent owner and that it “constitutes an exit filing.”
| Vehicle | 13 Oct | 14 Oct | 15 Oct | 16 Oct | 19 Oct | Tranche |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trust (c) | 11,683 | 11,683 | 11,683 | 11,683 | 11,683 | 11,683 |
| Trust (e) | 19,200 | 9,600 | 9,600 | 9,600 | 9,600 | 9,600 |
| Trust (f) | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 |
| Trust (g) | 15,879 | 7,940 | 7,940 | 7,940 | 7,940 | 7,940 |
| Graham, direct | — | — | — | 5,459 | 1,820 | 1,820 |
| Revocable trust | — | — | — | 5,593 | 5,438 | ~5,593 |
| Trust (d) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| WAP range | $11.72–13.02 | $9.00–9.44 | $8.34–8.52 | $7.23–7.98 | $6.07–6.63 | −53% |
Consensus read
CoBank sued on 9 October to block Cable One’s $480m purchase of Mega Broadband; a court paused the deal while a $2.45bn refinancing hung on the outcome; the shares lost 35%, then 22%, then 14.64% to $7.23 on 16 October.
Graham, who rode the stock down from its late-2020 peak at a reported cost of more than $1bn, finally capitulated: an eleven-year holder panic-selling into a broken deal, day after day, at steadily worse prices. The two amendments in six days are the signature of a decision unravelling in real time.
Contrarian read
This was not day-by-day capitulation. It was a pre-sized, ten-tranche, full-exit schedule — fixed on or before 13 October and executed without a single adjustment through a 53% collapse.
Amendment No. 6’s language, that he “intends in the near term to dispose of some or all” of his stock, was not an intention forming. It was disclosure of a programme already running, and already sized to zero.
And it was not indiscriminate: one trust holding 96,000 shares — the largest single block, 34% of what remains — was deliberately left out of it.
The evidence that discriminates
A capitulating seller varies size with the news. A pre-sized schedule does not. The divisibility settles it:
- Trust (c) held 116,830 before the first sale and sold 11,683 on each of five sessions. 116,830 = 11,683 × 10, exactly.
- Trust (e) held 96,000 and sold 9,600 a day after a doubled first day. 96,000 = 9,600 × 10, exactly.
- Trust (f) held 5,000 and sold 500 a day. 5,000 = 500 × 10, exactly.
- Trust (g) held 79,395 and sold 7,940 a day after a doubled first day. 7,939.5 × 10.
- The two accounts he controls alone — his own name and his revocable trust — started three sessions later, on 16 October, and run their own tens: 18,194 ≈ 1,820 × 10; 55,927 ≈ 5,593 × 10.
Four independent trusts and two personal accounts, six positions, all divisible by ten at the observed daily rate. That is not what a series of daily decisions produces. It is what one instruction produces.
Inference, labelled: neither amendment mentions a Rule 10b5-1 plan, and neither states when the schedule was set. That it was set before the first sale is my inference from the divisibility — the filings do not say it. What the filings do say is the quantity, the date and the price, and those are not in dispute.
What would falsify me
Amendment No. 8 showing the daily quantities changing, the programme stopping short of ten tranches, or any sale at all out of trust (d). Any of those and the sizes were being decided day by day, not in advance.
Equally fatal: a disclosed Rule 10b5-1 adoption date after 13 October, which would put the decision inside the collapse rather than before the first sale.
Pattern vs his own historyOriginal Schedule 13D 2 July 2015. Amendments 13 November 2015, 22 December 2017, 18 January 2018, 16 December 2019, 8 May 2023 — five in roughly eight years, none reporting a disposal programme. Then Nos. 6 and 7 six days apart, the second an exit filing. At the end of it, 10,915 shares remain in his own name.