Weild & Co.

Bob Aber passed away. He was former General Counsel of Nasdaq and headed the Strategic Initiatives Group for the Corporate Client Division (listed companies). There was no better friend or public servant. I loved Bob. He was such an asset to us at Nasdaq. He and I worked through the aftermath of June 30 Triple Witching debacle when developers accidentally launched software into the live market instead of their sandbox. I was flying back to New York from San Francisco. I had an empty voice mail box when I took off. A full one when I landed. The errant software had kicked Nasdaq market makers out of the market. All that was left was electronic trading. Our listed companies had their shares trade up and down dramatically off market in price. We quickly learned what a big problem it was for issuers: Stock option plans were priced off the June 30 close. Stocks had closed up or down 6 points diluting the founders (down) or depriving employees of the benefit of the bargain by overpricing the plan. Bob's encyclopedic knowledge of the rules was indispensable and we called every one of the Nasdaq-100 affected companies to practice damage control and educate them about what we could and could not do due to SEC rules. There was no one better to be in the trenches calling our Nasdaq-listed companies and he did it all the way through late the 4th of July Eve picking up listed companies on the West Coast into the night. We were the very last people in the office. The building was empty as everyone else was long departed to celebrate the holiday. Exceptionally intelligent. Exceptionally knowledgable. Hard working. A resource. Nasdaq through and through. https://lnkd.in/e-g7gU7b