Schneider Electric agreed on Monday to acquire publicly-traded software company PTC in which Donald Trump’s investment portfolio bought $500,000 worth of stock 77 days prior.
Offering $22.6 billion all-cash at $205 per share, a 42% premium to Friday’s close, the buyout offer is 64% higher than the day Trump’s portfolio acquired shares just 77 days ago.
Trump’s beneficial purchase sits on row 1,001 of a US Department of Government Ethics filing. The president disclosed a purchase of up to $1 million shares of PTC Inc.
The public learned of Trump’s investment on September 22.
Because Trump must file only periodic, rather than daily, trading disclosures, it’s impossible to know whether he continued to hold PTC through its buyout this week until he files a subsequent disclosure.
If Trump did hold PTC from July 20, his trade has profited at least 53% as of yesterday’s close and as much as 64% if the deal closes at Schneider Electric’s full $205 per share offer.
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Who chooses Donald Trump’s stock trades?
The extent to which Trump is involved in the holdings of his investment portfolio is a matter of public debate.
A Trump Organization spokesperson claimed in May that the holdings sit in “fully discretionary accounts,” meaning that someone was, in contrast to passive rebalancing or indexation, actively choosing which securities to buy and sell.
That spokesperson claimed that Trump’s personal portfolio is “independently managed by third-party financial institutions with sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions.”
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, the official legal print publication of codified rules published in the Federal Register by US government departments and agencies, “You have investment discretion when you have… the sole or shared authority to determine what securities or other assets to purchase or sell on behalf of that account.”
That code continues to explain investment discretion, even when delegating discretion to another trader, saying, “You retain investment discretion if you delegate investment discretion to another.”
On September 22, White House spokesman Davis Ingle repeated that outside institutions manage Trump’s portfolio.
However, Trump himself has said, rather than third-party institutions, “My kids run it.” Indeed, Ingle has also told Fortune that Trump’s assets sit in a trust “managed by his children.”
Asked about the baffling tension, he concluded, “defer to Trump Org.”
Unconvinced, two US Senators wrote to Trump in August about his trading activities, “The timing of a number of transactions raise questions about whether you are using your knowledge of government activities, your official authority, or the vast megaphone provided by the presidency to make investments or move markets to your personal benefit.”
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