This Struggling Retailer Sees Co-Founder Sell Massive Blocks of Shares
Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ:BBBY) has had one of its most important corporate insiders make a number of large insider sales over the past several trading sessions. Warren Eisenberg, Co-Founder of Bed Bath & Beyond and Co-Chairman since 1999, sold 177,167 shares on Friday, 361,544 shares on Monday and 100,000 shares on Tuesday, at prices that ranged from $47.00 to $49.03 per share. The executive exercised 165,970 employee stock options on Friday, which accounts for a portion of the shares sold. Mr. Eisenberg also reported the sale of 321,126 shares at prices varying from $47.00 to $49.03 per share, which were owned by Maxine Eisenberg, Mr. Eisenberg’s spouse. The Co-Chairman also holds an indirect ownership stake of 869,855 shares, which is held by trusts for the benefit of Mr. Eisenberg and his family members.
Bed Bath & Beyond is a retailer that sells a wide range of domestic merchandise and home furnishings, which include categories such as bed linens, bath items and kitchen textiles, as well as kitchen and tabletop items, fine tabletops, and basic housewares, to name just a few. The shares of the home goods retailer were freefalling from the beginning of 2015 until mid-February of this year and the company has seen its market value decline by 35% in the past 12 months, though its market capitalization has stabilized in the past three months, being up by 6%. Bed Bath & Beyond’s net sales for fiscal year 2015 that ended February 27 reached $12.10 billion, up from $11.88 billion reported for fiscal year 2014. The company’s comparable sales grew by roughly 1.0% during fiscal year 2015, after increasing by 2.4% in fiscal year 2014. Meanwhile, fiscal year 2015 net earnings fell by $115.98 million year-over-year to $841.49 million. Net earnings per diluted share did reach $5.10 however, up from $5.07 per diluted share in the previous fiscal year. It is important to note that the company’s Board did authorize a quarterly dividend program along with its latest earnings, the first time in its 24-year history as a publicly-traded company that will make dividend payments to shareholders. The quarterly dividend of $0.125 per share provides a current dividend yield of 1.05%. Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond are currently trading at a forward P/E multiple of 9.2, below the forward P/E ratio of 11.7 for the household appliances sector.
The hedge fund sentiment towards the home goods retailer declined in the final quarter of 2015, with the number of funds invested in the company dropping to 23 from 33 quarter-over-quarter. David Harding’s Winton Capital Management reported ownership of 1.65 million share of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ:BBBY) through the round of quarterly 13Fs filings for the December quarter.
