Executives at some of America's most troubled companies sold shares worth $66bn (�44bn) shortly before prices collapsed, a report in Fortune magazine suggests.

These executives sold huge amounts of shares in their own companies when prices were at their peak. Since then, shares have plunged - erasing the value of many investor portfolios - as it became apparent that prices did not reflect the true value of the companies.

The Fortune magazine survey looked at 1,035 corporations, whose share prices had fallen dramatically, and then looked at which executives had sold shares.

Who sold what?

Qwest Communications' director Philip Anschutz sold $1.57bn Gateway's CEO Ted Waitt sold $1.10bn Broadcom co-chairman Henry Samueli sold $810m Broadcom co-chairman Henry Nicholas sold $799m Peregrine Systems' chairman John Moores sold $646m Global Crossing chairman Gary Winnick sold $508m AOL Time Warner chairman Steve Case sold $475m i2 Technologies CEO Sanjiv Sidhu sold $447m Infospaces CEO Naveen Jain sold $406m Charles Schwab sold $353m

Normally, people who sell at the top of the market are applauded for their foresight. However, in the light of the huge plunge in share values and allegations of fraud and false revenues, this survey further reinforces the perception that some executives 'took the money and ran'.

The fact that several executives profited from their stewardship of underperforming companies also undermines the assertion that these stock options were linked to executive performance.

The top 25...

Qwest Communications' Phil Anschutz topped the list. He sold $1.57bn of stock to BellSouth in May 1999.

The shares were sold at $47.25 each, $8 more than the market price. These shares now trade at about $1 a piece.

All smiles then... AOL Time Warner chairman Steve Case sold millions of dollars of stock

JDS Uniphase chief executive Jozef Straus sold $147m in shares within three months of starting as chief executive.

"It was done in the middle of the growth market. Everybody was saying that it was going to be moving up for the next five years," he told Fortune magazine.

"By and large for the people doing it [selling their shares], the financial component of being in those companies outweighed the executive responsibility," Michael Ramsey, Tivo chief executive said. He sold less than $1.6m of stock.

The survey, conducted with Thomson Financial and University of Chicago's Center for Research in Securities Pricing, looked at companies that hit a market capitalisation of at least $400m and have since fallen at least 75% from their highs.

It looked at insider stock sales from 1999 and included stock sold by top executives and board members.