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Hammerson plc (LON:HMSO) shareholders (or potential shareholders) will be happy to see that the Non Executive Director, Desmond de Beer, recently bought a whopping UK£3.3m worth of stock, at a price of UK£0.53. That increased their holding by a full 826%, which arguably implies the sort of confidence required for a shy sweet-natured nerd to ask the most popular kid in the school to go out on a date.
Check out our latest analysis for Hammerson
Hammerson Insider Transactions Over The Last Year
Notably, that recent purchase by Desmond de Beer is the biggest insider purchase of Hammerson shares that we've seen in the last year. That means that even when the share price was higher than UK£0.51 (the recent price), an insider wanted to purchase shares. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. As a general rule, we feel more positive about a stock if insiders have bought shares at above current prices, because that suggests they viewed the stock as good value, even at a higher price.
Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid UK£3.8m for 7.13m shares. But they sold 20.28k shares for UK£14k. Overall, Hammerson insiders were net buyers during the last year. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!
There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).
Insider Ownership
I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. It appears that Hammerson insiders own 3.7% of the company, worth about UK£14m. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders.
So What Do The Hammerson Insider Transactions Indicate?
The recent insider purchase is heartening. And the longer term insider transactions also give us confidence. However, we note that the company didn't make a profit over the last twelve months, which makes us cautious. When combined with notable insider ownership, these factors suggest Hammerson insiders are well aligned, and that they may think the share price is too low. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. Be aware that Hammerson is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those can't be ignored...