RELX Insiders Sold UK£18m Of Shares Suggesting Hesitancy

In the last year, many RELX PLC (LON:REL) insiders sold a substantial stake in the company which may have sparked shareholders' attention. When evaluating insider transactions, knowing whether insiders are buying is usually more beneficial than knowing whether they are selling, as the latter can be open to many interpretations. However, when multiple insiders sell stock over a specific duration, shareholders should take notice as that could possibly be a red flag.

While insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing, we do think it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing.

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The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At RELX

The CEO & Executive Director, Erik Engstrom, made the biggest insider sale in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for UK£10m worth of shares at a price of UK£40.71 each. While insider selling is a negative, to us, it is more negative if the shares are sold at a lower price. The good news is that this large sale was at well above current price of UK£34.63. So it may not shed much light on insider confidence at current levels.

All up, insiders sold more shares in RELX than they bought, over the last year. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

See our latest analysis for RELX

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Insider Ownership

For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. It appears that RELX insiders own 0.1% of the company, worth about UK£70m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

So What Do The RELX Insider Transactions Indicate?

It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded RELX shares in the last quarter. We don't take much encouragement from the transactions by RELX insiders. But it's good to see that insiders own shares in the company. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing RELX. While conducting our analysis, we found that RELX has 1 warning sign and it would be unwise to ignore this.

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For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.