Investors who take an interest in The Artisanal Spirits Company plc (LON:ART) should definitely note that the Independent Non-Executive Chairman of the Board, Mark Hunter, recently paid UK£0.73 per share to buy UK£240k worth of the stock. That's a very decent purchase to our minds and it grew their holding by a solid 35%.

Check out our latest analysis for Artisanal Spirits

Artisanal Spirits Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Notably, that recent purchase by Mark Hunter is the biggest insider purchase of Artisanal Spirits shares that we've seen in the last year. That implies that an insider found the current price of UK£0.76 per share to be enticing. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. 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. Happily, the Artisanal Spirits insiders decided to buy shares at close to current prices.

Artisanal Spirits insiders may have bought shares in the last year, but they didn't sell any. 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

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 14% of Artisanal Spirits shares, worth about UK£7.4m, according to our data. We do note, however, it is possible insiders have an indirect interest through a private company or other corporate structure. We do generally prefer see higher levels of insider ownership.

What Might The Insider Transactions At Artisanal Spirits Tell Us?

It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchases. And the longer term insider transactions also give us confidence. But on the other hand, the company made a loss during the last year, which makes us a little cautious. While the overall levels of insider ownership are below what we'd like to see, the history of transactions imply that Artisanal Spirits insiders are reasonably well aligned, and optimistic for the future. 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. When we did our research, we found 4 warning signs for Artisanal Spirits (2 make us uncomfortable!) that we believe deserve your full attention.