Potential Victoria's Secret & Co. (NYSE:VSCO) shareholders may wish to note that the Chief Financial & Administrative Officer and Executive VP, Timothy Johnson, recently bought US$343k worth of stock, paying US$17.16 for each share. That's a very decent purchase to our minds and it grew their holding by a solid 27%.
Check out our latest analysis for Victoria's Secret
The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Victoria's Secret
In fact, the recent purchase by Timothy Johnson was the biggest purchase of Victoria's Secret shares made by an insider individual in the last twelve months, according to our records. That implies that an insider found the current price of US$18.49 per share to be enticing. That means they have been optimistic about the company in the past, though they may have changed their mind. 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 bought shares at close to current prices. Timothy Johnson was the only individual insider to buy during the last year.
The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. 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 growing companies that insiders are buying.
Insider Ownership Of Victoria's Secret
Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Victoria's Secret insiders own about US$160m worth of shares (which is 11% of the company). I like to see this level of insider ownership, because it increases the chances that management are thinking about the best interests of shareholders.
So What Do The Victoria's Secret Insider Transactions Indicate?
It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchase. And an analysis of the transactions over the last year also gives us confidence. When combined with notable insider ownership, these factors suggest Victoria's Secret insiders are well aligned, and quite possibly think the share price is too low. Nice! So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. Be aware that Victoria's Secret is showing 4 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those is potentially serious...