On Monday, three members of Pulaski Financial Corp (NASDAQ:PULB)‘s board of directors purchased stock from the company.
Sharon Tucker acquired 989 shares at $10.115 each, or a total of approximately $10,000. She now holds 7,380 common shares directly (worth roughly $77,637 as of Tue. Oct. 1st, 4:00 PM EST), and an extra 585, indirectly (stock award to vest on November 7th, 2013).
A Leon Felman purchased 1,977 shares at the same price and now holds, about $1,963,884 in stock. On top of this, he possesses 741,774 shares indirectly.
J Stanley Bradshaw bought 2,000 shares at $10,31 and 1,147 shares at $10,30 and now owns 229,283 shares, valued at roughly $2,412,057. Bradshaw also holds 585 shares to vest on Nov. 7th.
Additionally, Bradshaw and Felman hold 30,000 and 6,000 stock options (right to buy) to expire in 2018 and 2014, respectively.
The stock is already up more than 5% since the purchases and the uptrend could continue. These insiders have been quite active during 2013, having achieved to impact differently over the stock price. According to our database, these three board-members purchased Pulaski stock in 25 different occasions (with Bradshaw leading the bunch by a wide margin).
One of the most relevant factors to understand their activity stems on the company´s dividend yield. Currently standing at 3.69% of the stock price, investors can enjoy of a steady cash inflow. The next quarterly dividend, scheduled for Tuesday, October 15th will reward all stockholders of record on Tuesday, October 8th. They will receive $0.95 per share. Annualized, the yield adds up to a 36.12%. Not bad, right?
The acquisitions also follow a recent announcement of the repurchase of $6 million in preferred stock from private investors. This takes Pulaski’s cumulative repurchases to $15.2 million in par value, or 47% of the $32.5 million originally issued.
Also worth to highlight is the company´s return on equity. At 11.8%, it almost doubles the industry average of 6.4%. Valuation, at 8.7 times its earnings and 1.8 times its sales, at less than half the industry means, are also quite attractive.
Although there are only two hedge funds bullish on the company, they are not to be underestimated. They are Matthew Lindembaum’s Basswood Capital and Jim Simonss’ Renaissance Technologies, which hold $6,499,000 and $248,000 in stock, respectively.
Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no position in any stocks mentioned
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