Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI) and Two Other Companies Witness Top Executives Sell Shares

Aqua America Inc. (NYSE:WTR) has also witnessed strong insider selling this month, but the majority of insider sales were connected to freshly-exercised stock options. Even so, there was some spur-of-the-moment insider selling that might be informative for investors. Non-executive Chairman Nicholas DeBenedictis, who served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from June 1993 to July 2015, reported selling 100,531 shares last Monday at a price of $31.52 per share, of which 5,180 shares were held through his Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and 4,141 shares were held by his spouse’s IRA. After the recent sales, the Chairman continues to hold a direct ownership stake of 31,468 shares.

Aqua America operates as the holding company for regulated utilities providing water or wastewater services to approximately 3 million people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, North Caroline, New Jersey, Indiana, and Virginia. Shares of Aqua America have advanced by 75% in the past five years, after gaining 16% in the past 12 months. This somewhat remarkable stock performance appears to explain the Chairman’s decision to unload some shares, which seems to support the “fair valuation” thesis. The company’s customer count grew by nearly 18,000 customers last year, mainly due to newly-acquired utility systems and natural growth. Aqua America’s utility customer base (excluding customers related to utility system dispositions), increased at an annual compound rate of 2.4% from 2011 through 2015. It is important to note that the U.S-based water utility has paid quarterly dividends for 71 straight years and has increased its annual dividend for 24 consecutive years. Therefore, Aqua America is on track to join the exclusive list of Dividend Aristocrats, after having increased its annual dividend payments in excess of 5% for 17 consecutive years. The company pays out an annualized dividend of $0.712 per share, which equates to a current dividend yield of 2.26%. Shares of Aqua America are currently trading at 22.2-times expected earnings, notably above the forward P/E multiple of 17.1 for the S&P 500 Index. Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies reported owning 1.39 million shares of Aqua America Inc. (NYSE:WTR) through the latest round of 13F filings.