Huntsman sells his stock in firm

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has sold his stock in the family-held Huntsman petro-chemical firm, netting between $15 million and $25 million, the governor's spokeswoman Tammy Kikuchi said Tuesday.

Huntsman sold the stock at $23 a share several weeks ago, fulfilling a campaign statement that he planned to sell off all his stock in Huntsman LLC or any subsidiary firms when the world's largest privately-held plastic-production corporation went public in 2005.

Huntsman LLC went public in January; its stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange. But the governor, one of nine children of the company's founder — Jon Huntsman Sr. — said he wasn't going to sell until Security and Exchange Commission regulations allowed him to and he could get a good price for the stock.

Huntsman declined to say exactly how much stock he held.

Because he is not a director in Huntsman LLC and didn't own more than 5 percent of the outstanding stock, he doesn't have to publicly disclose to the SEC how much stock he sold or at what price, according to a spokesman for the SEC.

In previous interviews with the Deseret Morning News, Huntsman said he, like the other Huntsman children, held 1.8 percent of the stock in the multibillion-dollar firm.

Gov. Huntsman has said before he would place the money in a blind trust and draw upon it for various expenditures, including paying for his children's college educations. Huntsman says he plans to live on his gubernatorial salary of just over $100,000 a year.