The World's Richest Man has a little bit more walking around money.
Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and co-founder, sold two million shares of his stock in the company on Oct. 31, at prices between $36.71 and $36.96, according to a filing Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The stock was sold in blocks ranging from 7,311 shares to 325,000 shares, according to the filing.
The timing of the sale worked out for Gates; the shares sold near the 52-week high of 37.50 for Microsoft stock. At Friday's close of the Nasdaq stock market, Microsoft shares were priced at $37.06.
The sale amounted to a total of $73,686,486.09. Of course, compared to Gates' total wealth, that's a only a fraction of his portfolio. According to Forbes, Gates topped the world's list of billionaires earlier this year with wealth estimated at $56 billion. The stock sale earlier this week still left Gates holding more than 875 million shares of stock in Microsoft.
Gates, who has been active in his role as chairman and evangelist for the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant, is slated to transition out of his day-to-day role at the company next July so he can focus on health and education issues at the philanthropic organization he runs with his wife, Melinda.
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