Insider Buying Activity at Aircastle Limited

Insider buying activity: Marubeni Corporation, Director of Aircastle Limited (NYSE:AYR), purchased 30,000 shares of common stock on Tuesday at a price of $17.65 each, increasing its stake in the firm to 13,937,100 shares. This means Marubeni now holds approximately $24,965,412 worth of stock (at $17.69 as of Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2:00 PM EST), after it spent $529,500 on its latest acquisition.

Aircastle Limited (NYSE:AYR)

This is the fifth purchase by the Director of Aircastle, since September 25th, when it purchased 30,000 shares at $17.48. After Marubeni’s strong insider activity, which saw it buy  149,900 shares over the past week, the stock has increased its value by 1.2%. Aircastle is now trading at 29.4 times its trailing earnings, translating to a 77% price premium to the industry average.

The strong insider trading of Aircastle follows the appointment of Ryusuke Konto and Gentaro Toya to the board of directors last month. Mr Konto is a chairman of Marubeni Aerospace Corporation and Mr. Toya is the Assistant Advisor to the President for the Transportation Machinery Division of the same firm. Both were announced to the board of directors, after Marubeni acquired 12,320,000 common shares of Aircastle’s common stock at $17, on July 12, 2013. The total sum of the purchase was approximately $209 million.

Aircastle’s largest hedge fund bulls are Hirzel Capital Management, which holds 1,533,775 shares, and Goodnow Investment Group, with 1,999,871 shares of common stock or $31,978,000 worth of stock. Aircastle makes up 5.98% and 5.8% of the hedge fund’s portfolio, respectively. These are just two hedge funds with strong positions in the company. Dreman Value Management holds over $29 million worth of stock, or 1,832,560 shares, although it only makes up around 0,91% of its portfolio.

When commenting on Aircastle’s second quarter earnings,  CEO Ron Wainshal said in a press release, “Aircastle’s second quarter financial results were very good, reflecting strong portfolio performance and effective asset management”. Insider trading seems to confirm the positive outlook for the firm

Disclosure: Pablo Erbar holds no position in any stocks mentioned

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