CashNews.co
Liontrust Asset Management PLC (LON:LIO) shareholders (or potential shareholders) will be happy to see that the CEO & Executive Director, John Ions, recently bought a whopping UK£450k worth of stock, at a price of UK£4.50. Aside from being a solid chunk in its own right, the deft move also saw their holding increase by some 11%.
Check out our latest analysis for Liontrust Asset Management
In fact, the recent purchase by John Ions was the biggest purchase of Liontrust Asset Management shares made by an insider individual in the last twelve months, according to our records. That implies that an insider found the current price of UK£4.60 per share to be enticing. Of course they may have changed their mind. But this suggests they are optimistic. If someone buys shares at well below current prices, it’s a good sign on balance, but keep in mind they may no longer see value. The good news for Liontrust Asset Management share holders is that insiders were buying at near the current price.
While Liontrust Asset Management insiders bought shares during the last year, they didn’t sell. The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!
Liontrust Asset Management is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find small cap companies at attractive valuations, this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.
Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Liontrust Asset Management insiders own about UK£8.9m worth of shares. That equates to 3.0% of the company. This level of insider ownership is good but just short of being particularly stand-out. It certainly does suggest a reasonable degree of alignment.
The recent insider purchase is heartening. And an analysis of the transactions over the last year also gives us confidence. While the overall levels of insider ownership are below what we’d like to see, the history of transactions imply that Liontrust Asset Management insiders are reasonably well aligned, and optimistic for the future. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it’s beneficial to identify the risks facing Liontrust Asset Management. To help with this, we’ve discovered 2 warning signs (1 doesn’t sit too well with us!) that you ought to be aware of before buying any shares in Liontrust Asset Management.