Chairman of the Board of James Cropper Picks Up 4.8% More Stock

Potential James Cropper PLC (LON:CRPR) shareholders may wish to note that the Chairman of the Board, Mark A. Cropper, recently bought UK£231k worth of stock, paying UK£1.98 for each share. While that's a very decent purchase to our minds, it was proportionally a bit modest, boosting their holding by just 4.8%.

Check out our latest analysis for James Cropper

James Cropper Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Notably, that recent purchase by Mark A. Cropper is the biggest insider purchase of James Cropper shares that we've seen in the last year. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at around the current price of UK£2.00. Of course they may have changed their mind. But this suggests they are optimistic. While we always like to see insider buying, it's less meaningful if the purchases were made at much lower prices, as the opportunity they saw may have passed. In this case we're pleased to report that the insider purchases were made at close to current prices. Notably Mark A. Cropper was also the biggest seller.

Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid UK£247k for 122.96k shares. But insiders sold 5.00k shares worth UK£9.9k. In the last twelve months there was more buying than selling by James Cropper insiders. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of undervalued small cap companies that insiders are buying.

Insider Ownership

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Insiders own 27% of James Cropper shares, worth about UK£5.1m. 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 James Cropper Insider Transactions Indicate?

It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchases. And an analysis of the transactions over the last year also gives 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 James Cropper insiders are well aligned, and that they may think the share price is too low. So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. You'd be interested to know, that we found 2 warning signs for James Cropper and we suggest you have a look.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

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.