Shatner's a billionaire?

[the G-man]

William Shatner, Stock Market Billionaire?

• He may be, thanks to Priceline.com.
  
  Quietly PCLN shares have surged to yet another record high. They're up nearly $90 bucks this year alone and are closing in on $500.
  
  When Captain Kirk .. er, Shatner .. became Priceline's pitchman more than a decade ago, he smartly (or desperately) decided to be paid in stock. After a brief run during the tech boom Priceline shares went into the dump, bottoming out below $2.
  
  Then the run began.
  
  While we don't know how many shares or options Shatner was given, or if he has held onto them, reports last year were that his stake was worth some $600 million dollars. And that was when Priceline was trading at a mere $300/share.
  
  With the stock up nearly $200 more/share since then, its possible Mr. Shatner is getting darn close to being a good, old fashioned stock market billionaire.

 

[Vulpes]

I know that he has a decent interior design budget, considering his appearance on American Pickers.

 

[Merky]

I don't know if being a Stock Market billionaire is a good thing or a bad thing. The stocks is funny money imo

 

[A beaker full of death]

A billion ain't what it used to be.

 

[Leroy]

Ashes of Eden must have sold better than I thought.

 

[Satyrquaze]

According to Brent Spiner... actors do okay finacially too.

 

[infinix]

holy crap... priceline.com stock is that expensive!!!!!

 

[Botany Bay]

Current Share Price = $492
Shatner's alleged equity = $1, 000, 000, 000

So Shatner would have been given 2, 032, 520 shares in the company to appear on the TV ads.

This would make him the second largest holder of this company's shares behind PRICE (T.ROWE) ASSOCIATES INC who own 2,288,914 shares, or just over 4% of the company.

Assuming he signed on in March 2001 when the stock was near its rock bottom, Priceline paid him :

$2.53 x 2, 032, 520 = $5, 142, 275.60 to do the ads.

I think we can safely say the Shat isn't a Priceline billionaire, but if he bought and held, he's done very nicely (as would have anyone owning these shares).

As we speak, Shatner is hopping on a plane to fly all the way to Australia to do a Star Trek convention. If he were a billionaire, he sure must love appearing at conventions a whole lot more than he lets on

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

If he is, good for him! If he isn't, hang in there, Bill. You're going to be.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

A billion ain't what it used to be.

Really? Well if you have a billion that you don't want I'll be happy to take it off your hands.

 

[Elder Knight]

I don't know ... his latest commercial wherein you use PriceLine to negotiate your income taxes . . . that could go horribly wrong.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

They could have done a little research - Shatner has mentioned more than once that he sold most of his stock shortly before the dot.com bust and that was quite a while ago.

 

[Botany Bay]

I believe "click bait" is the name they use for this kind of stuff.

A lot of news websites are drowning in this crap - its getting hard to find the actual news in amongst the rubbish hastily thrown up to get page views.

 

[scottydog]

They could have done a little research - Shatner has mentioned more than once that he sold most of his stock shortly before the dot.com bust and that was quite a while ago.

Even if this is true, I hope Shat's doing well financially. You hear a lot of stories of celebrities who foolishly lose their money or have it squandered by unscrupulous financial managers. He deserves to be living well.

 

[Markas]

No one at this point knows how many shares Shatner was granted, nor how many he has held on to. He sold some after the dotbomb for $5.xx per share. Priceline won't say how many shares they gave him beyond the original grant, which was either 100k or 125k shares.

Yeah, he's plenty rich, but probably not a billionaire from PL.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

He probably has more money than Denny Crane.

 

[Anji]

He wasn't exactly poor before the Priceline ads, you know. He may have sold off his rights to TOS but he made a helluva lot in merchandising.

 

[F. King Daniel]

They could have done a little research - Shatner has mentioned more than once that he sold most of his stock shortly before the dot.com bust and that was quite a while ago.

Even if this is true, I hope Shat's doing well financially. You hear a lot of stories of celebrities who foolishly lose their money or have it squandered by unscrupulous financial managers. He deserves to be living well.

If that sort of thing was gonna happen to Shatner, it would have happened long ago by now.