Vicor's founder sold $6.3M the day after the second raise; the stock now sits below his floor
Founder-CEO Patrizio Vinciarelli sold $6.3 million of Vicor at $307 to $330 on October 1, the day after the second guidance raise in nine days, and filed to sell $6.2 million more. The stock closed October 6 at $299.29, below every price he got, and slid further on October 7; October 20 is when the AI royalty behind the raises must show up in revenue.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
The market has slipped below the founder's floor
Vicor closed at $299.29 on October 6, far from its 52-week high of $382.65 1. Every share its founder sold five days earlier went out at $307.0155 or better 2. That gap is the whole trade right now, and it gets settled on October 20, when third-quarter results land 13. By the afternoon of October 7 the stock had slipped further, to about $280 4.
Nine days, two raises, one unnamed payer
On September 11, Vicor committed to fab sites in Merrimack and Hooksett, New Hampshire: nearly one million square feet for ChiP Fab-2 and Fab-3, against Fab-1's 320,000 5. On September 16 it granted its first non-exclusive license for Vertical Power Delivery, letting an unnamed OEM power AI compute with modules bought from unlicensed suppliers 6.
On September 21, Q3 guidance rose from nearly 10% sequential growth to more than 20%; the CEO counted "four leading companies" as licensed and noted that systems using VPD could also be banned from import 7. On September 30 it rose again, to more than 30%, on "increased royalties" from that same license 4.
Vicor's Q3 growth guidance tripled in nine days on one license
- Q3 sequential revenue growth guided
- Estimate
Data
| Q3 sequential revenue growth guided | |
|---|---|
| July (Q2 call) (estimate) | 10% |
| September 21 (estimate) | 20% |
| September 30 (estimate) | 30% |
The founder's trade, on file
On October 1, the day after the second raise, Patrizio Vinciarelli sold 20,000 shares in 17 transactions for $6,322,515.64, at weighted-average prices from $307.0155 to $330.00, under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted February 26 2. On October 2 a Form 144 proposed 20,000 more, worth about $6.17 million: founders' shares acquired on 11/10/1981 8.
Phil Davies, corporate VP for global sales and a director, exercised options at $33.96 and $41.61 on October 1 and sold the resulting 3,072 shares for about $972,000, leaving 1,920 direct 9.
The October 6 close sits below every insider sale on October 1
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Close, October 6 | $299.29 |
| Founder, lowest fill | $307.02 |
| Sales chief, average | $316.37 |
| Founder, highest fill | $330 |
The plans came first
The filings carry their own defense. Both plans predate the September license by months, February 26 for the founder and November 21, 2025, for Davies, and the Form 144 carries the standard certification of no undisclosed adverse information 289.
Vinciarelli kept 8,327,390 direct shares plus 167,125 in trust for his child; the 40,000 sold or proposed are under half a percent of that 28. The board, for its part, put $150 million behind a buyback announced August 27 7.
One royalty carries the re-rating
Second-quarter revenue was $143.4 million at a 58.0% gross margin; the year-ago quarter printed 65.3% on the back of a $45.0 million patent settlement booked as revenue 110. The quarter's $15 million licensing payment and a backlog up 26% to $379.7 million say the stream is real; management's own caution, that new licenses may wait on a second ITC determination in 2027, says it is thin 10. Five analysts still carry a $391.67 average Buy target 1.
The royalty gets priced on October 20
Results drop at 7:00 a.m. and the call follows an hour later with all three names from the filings: Vinciarelli, CFO Jim Schmidt and Davies 3. The trade into that morning is hold or sell: holders win if the royalty recurs at the scale the raised guidance implies, and the $391.67 consensus is the loser if the stream proves thin until the 2027 ITC determination 110.
The insiders' prices are on file at the SEC. The royalty's price appears nowhere until that morning 3.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
