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Shopee President's $4M Share Sale Sheds No Light on Profit Squeeze
Shopee president Feng Zhimin sold $3.9 million in SEA shares under a pre-set plan. The real story is Shopee's thin margins — well under a cent per dollar of goods sold — as it targets $1 billion in profit against TikTok Shop.
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Feng Zhimin, president of Sea Limited's (NYSE:SE) Shopee unit, sold 30,000 Class A shares for about $3.9 million on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12. The sale came under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted March 26, meaning the trade was scheduled months before it executed.
Feng still holds 1,003,969 Class A shares directly plus indirect holdings. The sale price ranged from $126.28 to $131.70 across multiple blocks. Sea's market capitalization is about $70 billion; the sale is a rounding error.
What matters is not the insider transaction but the business behind it. Shopee, the e-commerce arm Feng helps run, just finished its strongest quarter in years. Gross merchandise value hit $38.3 billion, and revenue grew 48%. After years of losses, Shopee is now profitable – management targets $1 billion in full-year segment earnings. CEO Forrest Li said the unit "again achieved new highs in GMV, gross order volume and revenue."
The catch is the margin. Shopee earns well under a cent of adjusted profit per dollar of goods sold. Holding that $1 billion target means squeezing a few more basis points from each order while fending off TikTok Shop and other competitors. An insider sale on a pre-set plan says nothing about whether that works.