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High-Ranking Executive at World’s Largest Cruise Company Offloads Shares

A top executive at Carnival plc (ADR) (NYSE:CUK) also offloaded a great deal of shares earlier this week. Michael Olaf Thamm, Chief Executive Officer of Costa Crociere – a subsidiary of Carnival, sold 41,097 shares on Tuesday at an average price of $53.04 per share. Mr. Thamm owns a total of 95,466 shares after the sale.

The largest cruise company in the world, which carries around 48% of global cruise guests, has seen its market capitalization rise by 13% in the past year. Carnival plc (ADR) (NYSE:CUK) recently reached an agreement with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri to build two new cruise ships, designed for the company’s Holland America Line and Princess Cruises brands. The giant leisure travel company has 19 new ships scheduled to be delivered between 2017 and 2022. The company’s Board of Directors recently approved a quarterly dividend of $0.35 per share, which corresponds to an annual dividend yield of 2.58%. Marshall Wace LLP, founded by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, owned around 93,000 shares of Carnival plc (ADR) (NYSE:CUK) at the end of September.

Chairman of Largest U.S. Health Insurer Discards Shares

One member of UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH)’s board also unloaded a large pile of shares this week. Non-Executive Chairman Richard T. Burke, a director of the company since 1977, liquidated 10,000 shares on Tuesday at prices ranging from $161.57 to $161.77 per share. Mr. Burke currently owns an aggregate of 1.92 million shares after the recent transaction.

The shares of the diversified health and well-being company have gained 40% in the past year and an impressive 201% in the past five years. Although the Affordable Care Act, usually referred to as Obamacare, has succeeded at reducing the uninsured rate in the United States, it failed in achieving sustainability. One of the main reasons health insurance firms such as UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) have been abandoning the public insurance exchanges of the Affordable Care Act was that only a limited number of young, healthy individuals are signing up on these exchanges. UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, plans to reduce its individual ACA plan offerings from 34 states in 2016 to a mere three this year. Eric Sprott’s Sprott Asset Management cut its stake in UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) by 48% during the fourth quarter, to around 139,000 shares.

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