Stryker Corp. heir scores $50 million from stock sales

July 31, 2009 by MassDevice staff

The lone founding family member on the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based medical device maker's board, Ronda Stryker, liquidated 1.2 million shares since early May.

The sole founding family member on the Stryker Corp. board of directors sold about 6 percent of her stake in the medical device maker since early May, generating a nearly $50 million windfall.

Ronda Stryker, grand-daughter of the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based company's founder Homer Stryker, sold a total of 1.2 million shares of Stryker stock previously held in a revocable trust, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The bulk of those sales — 840,000 shares worth — occurred since July 24.

At an average price of $39.33 a share, the stock sales produced $47.2 million in proceeds.

Stryker, 54, along with her siblings Jon and Patricia, jointly controlled a huge bloc of company stock for more than 30 years, through a trust established and named for their late father, L. Lee Stryker. The three decided to dissolve that partnership late last year; Ronda Stryker stated in an April 16 SEC filing that she was planning to evaluate "her investment in the Company and her options with respect to such investment."

Stryker soon began selling off a portion of her holdings, unloading a total of 280,000 shares over a two-week span ended May 20 and pocketing just over $4 million. She picked up the pace last week, selling a 500,000-share bloc on July 24 and a combined 440,000 shares on Monday and Tuesday.

As a company director, she receives options to purchase Stryker stock at a set price, typically vesting in increments over five years. Her 2009 award contained options to purchase 12,375 shares of common stock at a $42 exercise price. At the company's current price of roughly $39 a share, she has about 50,000 "in-the-money" options that would generate a $750,000 profit if cashed in immediately.

Overall, Ronda Stryker now controls about 35.5 million shares, or 8.9 percent of the company, including stock held in various trusts.

The securities filings don't indicate how Stryker plans to use her newly liquid wealth. Unlike her brother and sister, who have been big fundraisers for Democratic candidates and causes in Michigan and Colorado, Ronda Stryker has largely steered clear of state and national politics. She and her husband are both executives with Greenleaf Trust, a money-management firm in Kalmazoo, and they and their adult children are trustees of the Stryker Johnston Foundation, which provides funding for several affordable housing, education and anti-racism programs.