CEO & Director of SunOpta Joseph Ennen Buys More Stock \

Potential SunOpta Inc. (NASDAQ:STKL) shareholders may wish to note that the CEO & Director, Joseph Ennen, recently bought US$101k worth of stock, paying US$6.72 for each share. However, it only increased shareholding by a small percentage, and it wasn't a huge purchase by absolute value, either.

View our latest analysis for SunOpta

SunOpta Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the Senior Vice President of Global Sourcing, Barend Reijn, sold US$312k worth of shares at a price of US$10.41 per share. We generally don't like to see insider selling, but the lower the sale price, the more it concerns us. It's of some comfort that this sale was conducted at a price well above the current share price, which is US$6.90. So it is hard to draw any strong conclusion from it.

In the last twelve months insiders purchased 36.60k shares for US$251k. On the other hand they divested 196.27k shares, for US$2.0m. All up, insiders sold more shares in SunOpta than they bought, over the last year. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Insider Ownership

For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company 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. Insiders own 3.8% of SunOpta shares, worth about US$31m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

What Might The Insider Transactions At SunOpta Tell Us?

It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchase. But we can't say the same for the transactions over the last 12 months. The more recent transactions are a positive, but SunOpta insiders haven't shown the sustained enthusiasm that we look for, although they do own a decent number of shares, overall. In short they are likely aligned with shareholders. While we like knowing what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. While conducting our analysis, we found that SunOpta has 2 warning signs and it would be unwise to ignore them.

Of course SunOpta 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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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.