Insider Trading: Thomas E. Claugus’ GMT Capital Increased Its Position in $KRA

Thomas E. Claugus’ GMT Capital recently increased its position in Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc. (KRA). GMT Capital is KRA’s large insider and stakeholder. In the second quarter, GMT Capital revealed 3.52 million shares in KRA, corresponding to a 11% stake. On October 19th, the firm filed Form 4 for its insider purchase of 34,400 shares at $18.93. So now GMT Capital has 4,436,655 KRA shares in its position, representing a 13.87% passive stake. KRA has lost about 43% year to date. The stock suffered a big loss in early August. On October 4th KRA rallied when GMT Capital reported an expansion in the stock. Now KRA is trading at $18.05.

Fifteen hedge funds in our tracking list had KRA in their portfolios. Beside GMT Capital’s largest position, Wayne Cooperman’s Cobalt Capital Management reported 467 thousand shares. Mark Kingdon’s Kingdon Capital Management reported 337 thousand shares.

GMT Capital is a private investment company, targeting on long-term absolute returns in Basic Materials, Technology, Services, Financial, Consumer Goods and some other sectors. The company had a 13F portfolio of $4.4 billion in the second quarter. Mr. Thomas E. Claugus is the Founder and President at GMT Capital. Before he found the GMT Capital in 1990, he acted as a manager for Europe of the polymers division of Rohm and Haas.

Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc. is a producer of styrenic block copolymers (SBCs) and non-SBC products. The company offers approximately 250 core commercial grades of SBCs which are used in disposable baby diapers, rubberized grips of toothbrushes, razor blades, power tools and in asphalt formulations. The company also offers non-SBC products such as isoprene rubber latex (IRL), which is mainly used in surgical gloves and condoms. The company was formerly known as Polymer Holdings LLC before December 2009.