American Campus Communities Inc. (NYSE:ACC) registered a cluster of insider selling in the past two weeks, though the dollar volume of those insider saleswas not overly significant. To begin with, William W. Talbot, Chief Investment Officer and Executive Vice President, offered 584 shares as a bona-fide gift on Wednesday and sold 5,435 shares on Thursday for $46.00 each, cutting his overall holding to 61,237 shares. Director Dennis G. Lopez offloaded 1,856 shares on Thursday at a weighted average price of $46.08, which reduced his ownership to a mere 2,647 shares. Last but not least, James C. Hopke Jr., Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, sold 6,498 units of common stock last Monday at an average price of $45.73 per unit. Following the not-so-distant sale, Mr. Hopke holds an ownership stake of 45,054 shares.
American Campus Communities operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on owning, managing and developing student housing properties across the United States. The REIT’s owned and third-party-managed portfolio comprises 201 properties with 128,900 beds as of the end of 2015. The shares of the REIT have been on a steady uptrend since mid-September, advancing by nearly 12% since the beginning of the year. Therefore, the fresh cluster of insider selling might represent yet another example of fair valuation being reached.
On the other hand, top-line results of American Campus Communities have been growing steadily over the past several years, while the company’s stock performance has not followed suit. The REIT’s 2015 revenue reached $753.38 million, up from $733.92 million in 2014, $657.46 million in 2013 and $465.66 million in 2012, while shares have only gained about 12% since the beginning of 2012. Meanwhile, funds from operations (FFO) totaled $271.38 million in 2015, up from $259.23 million in 2014, $236.78 million in 2013, and $168.36 million in 2012. The company’s revenue from same-store properties increased to $704.91 million in 2015 from $690.58 million in 2014 as a result of an increase in average rental rates, as well as an increase in weighted average occupancy to 95.4% from 94.9% in 2014. And although the company’s recent stock performance has weighed on its dividend yield, the REIT continues to offer an attractive yield of 3.46%, paying an annualized dividend of $1.60 per share.
The number of hedge funds with stakes in the REIT dropped to 11 from 15 during the final quarter of 2015. Jeffrey Furber’s AEW Capital Management reported ownership of 1.12 million shares of American Campus Communities Inc. (NYSE:ACC) through its 13F for the October-to-December period.
