SiliconBeat

With its stock price bumping around 2-and-a-half year lows and its CEO quitting, SourceForge’s executives started doing something this month they’ve never done before: buy shares of the company’s stock on the open market.

They include Robert Neumeister, the company’s president and interim chief executive, who shelled out $109,850 last Friday to buy 65,000 shares. Prior to buying these shares, which he paid $1.69 each for, he held none. Buying the same number of shares was a group president, Jonathan Sobel, who picked his up Monday, paying from $1.48 to $1.50 each.

The purchases come just days after the company’s previous chief executive, Ali Jenab, resigned. Jenab’s separation agreement calls for him to get a $750,000 cash severance payment along with any bonus he might have been paid for performance in the company’s fourth quarter, which ends July 31.

And yes, Jenab will remain as a consultant for at least three months to ”assist with the transition of management responsibilities”, for which he will be paid the equivalent of $1,166.70 a day, everyday, weekends included. And yes, he’ll get 12 months worth of accelerated vesting of his stock and options.
SourceForge began life as VA Linux Systems selling Linux-based hardware systems and services before it shucked selling goods and morphed into a software and media company called VA Software prior to its current identity change, which took place a little over a year ago. Now it operates a network of media web sites that aim to become the ”nexus for information exchange, open source software distribution and services and goods for geeks.”

”The company missed Wall Street’s earnings estimates for the fifth time in seven quarters,” according to a piece by Anders Bylund at The Motley Fool that was titled Can Source Forge Turn Things Around? Its shares hit a multi-year low June 10, the day after Jenab resigned. The were trading around $1.47 as we posted this.