SEC Is Reviewing Trades Made by Swift’s CEO

Swift Transportation Co., the third-largest U.S. trucker, said Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission was reviewing stock trades made by Chairman and Chief Executive Jerry Moyes.

Moyes, who according to Swift made $622,000 trading 187,000 shares last month, is cooperating with the informal inquiry, Phoenix-based Swift said. The inquiry must be elevated to a formal one for the SEC to have subpoena power.

Swift said this month that outside counsel was examining purchases by Moyes and broker trades for a company buyback in the days before it raised an earnings forecast, sending Swift’s stock up 20%, its biggest one-day gain. Swift said it was unable to reverse Moyes’ purchases.

Swift has said Moyes will place his profits in a trust overseen by independent directors.

The stock surge May 25 came after the company said its profit would be as much as 30 cents a share, topping the 22-cent average estimate of analysts in a Thomson First Call poll. Moyes, who owns 30% of Swift, and his brother founded the company in 1965 and built it into an operation with 2003 sales of $2.4 billion.