S.Y. Bancorp News: Massive Insider Trading Might Be Tricky

S.Y. Bancorp News: Nine members* of S.Y. Bancorp, Inc.(NASDAQ:SYBT)’s board of directors acquired company stock on Tuesday. Altogether they added 785 shares to their portfolios, at a price of $29.18 each. The operation totaled a little over $22,900.

Despite this massive activity could result quite alluring, there is more to it. The acquisitions are part of a Trust – Directors’ Deferred Compensation Plan, and not actual insider purchases.

However, two insiders DID buy stock over the last few days. Richard A Lechleiter, Board Director, acquired 1,000 shares at $28.2667 each, on Friday Sept. 27^th. He now holds 7,206 shares directly and 7,808, indirectly. In total, his stocks are worth about $283,764 (as of Wed. Oct. 2^nd 2:58 PM EST). Kathy C Thompson, Board Director and Sr. Executive Vice President, also purchased 1,000 shares of common stock on Monday Sept. 30^th. She paid $28.015 each, or $28,015 in total. She now holds about $960,728 in stock, between directly and indirectly owned shares.

Despite the strong insider activity, S.Y. Bancorp’s stock slipped more than 3% during Wednesday trading, and now stands at $28.26 (as of Wed Oct. 2^nd, 3:21 PM EST).

Although only four big hedge funds are bullish on S.Y. Bancorp, they are not names to underestimate. The company’s largest “hedgie” shareholder is Ken Gray and Steve Walsh’s Bryn Mawr Capital, which holds about $3,215,000 in stock. They are followed by Two Sigma Advisors, D.E. Shaw and Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies.

With above industry average returns on equity and asset (12.7% and 1.2%, respectively), and a couple of big names endowing the company, this looks like a stock to watch, even if the insider purchases are not what they seemed at first glance.

*The insiders adding stock to their portfolios are: Charles R. Edinger, Carl G. Herde, James A. Hillebrand, Richard A. Lechleiter, Bruce P. Madison, Richard Northern, Stephen M. Priebe, Nicholas X. Simon, and Norman Tasman. All of them perform as Directors in the company’s Board.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no position in any stocks mentioned

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