Mark DeFazio Is The President of Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. (NYSE:MCB) And They Just Sold 59% Of Their Shares

We wouldn't blame Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. (NYSE:MCB) shareholders if they were a little worried about the fact that Mark DeFazio, the President recently netted about US$3.7m selling shares at an average price of US$51.04. That diminished their holding by a very significant 59%, which arguably implies a strong desire to reallocate capital.

See our latest analysis for Metropolitan Bank Holding

Metropolitan Bank Holding Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

In fact, the recent sale by Mark DeFazio was the biggest sale of Metropolitan Bank Holding shares made by an insider individual in the last twelve months, according to our records. That means that an insider was selling shares at around the current price of US$50.34. While insider selling is a negative, to us, it is more negative if the shares are sold at a lower price. In this case, the big sale took place at around the current price, so it's not too bad (but it's still not a positive).

Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid US$199k for 8.82k shares. But they sold 76.03k shares for US$3.9m. Mark DeFazio ditched 76.03k shares over the year. The average price per share was US$50.96. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

If you like to buy stocks that insiders are buying, rather than selling, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

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 6.0% of Metropolitan Bank Holding shares, worth about US$25m. 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 Metropolitan Bank Holding Insider Transactions Indicate?

An insider sold stock recently, but they haven't been buying. Zooming out, the longer term picture doesn't give us much comfort. But since Metropolitan Bank Holding is profitable and growing, we're not too worried by this. While insiders do own shares, they don't own a heap, and they have been selling. So we'd only buy after careful consideration. 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. While conducting our analysis, we found that Metropolitan Bank Holding has 1 warning sign and it would be unwise to ignore it.

Of course Metropolitan Bank Holding may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of high quality 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, but not derivative transactions.

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