Kroger's stock has collapsed on disappointing earnings. An administrator has just sold a huge amount of stock.

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Kroger

stock (ticker: KR) dropped after the grocer announced disappointing results earlier this month, and now a longtime director of the company has just made a big stock sale.

On the morning of March 7, the company announced fourth-quarter results that did not meet analysts' expectations. The Kroger action closed the day at $ 25.61, a loss of 10%, large enough to put it in the red for the year so far. The supermarket has been hampered by a rapidly changing ecosystem, disrupted by the progress made by its competitors, including
Amazon.com

(AMZN).

This is not the only change in store for Kroger. J. Michael Schlotman, Kroger's CFO since 2000, will leave his position on April 3rd.

Kroger chief executive Robert D. Beyer, who has served on the company's board since 1999, sold 80,000 Kroger shares on Tuesday for a total of $ 1.96 million, for an average price of $ 24.52 each. Beyer, chairman of investment firm Chaparal Investments LLC, now owns 126,800, according to a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A spokesman for Kroger said Beyer was stepping down from the supermarket board and that his sales were part of a "normal diversification for an outgoing director after so many years".

The sale of Beyer – at a price representing a loss of 11% from late 2018 – is the biggest sale unrelated to the exercise of stock options by a Kroger insider in six years, according to S & P Capital IQ. In 2013, March 12 and 13, a trust controlled by the General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Paul Heldman, sold $ 3.1 million worth of shares. Heldman retired from Kroger in 2014.

The Kroger stock was trading at $ 24.08 on Wednesday afternoon, down 1% for the day and 12% for the year so far.

(Editor's note: This story has been updated to include Kroger's comments.)

Write to Ed Lin to [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.