Daniel Ellis, Carmike Cinemas VP is Bullish

Daniel Ellis, Carmike Cinemas: On Monday, Daniel Ellis, a Special VP and General Counsel at Carmike Cinemas, Inc. (NASDAQ:CKEC), acquired 86 shares of common stock at $21.85 per share. His holdings now amount to 38,958 shares,* or approximately $85,707 at current prices. The stock now trades very close to its historic high, but still at only 4.2 times its earnings, a 74% discount to the industry average. With analysts expecting average annual EPS growth rates around 12% for the next five years (consensus estimate), one can understand why Ellis is buying: value for money.

Raj Rajaratnam thinking

The purchase follows the clearance for the construction of a massive Carmike Cinemas movie theater in East Montgomery, AL that will cost about $8.5 million to build, and could result in a new source of revenue for the firm.

According to our records, Ellis has been adding Carmike stock to his portfolio every month for, at least, the last two years. The stock has almost quadrupled in price over this two-year period, providing huge gains for Ellis and other investors.

David S. Passman, President and CEO at Carmike, has been following the same strategy of acquiring stock every month for an even longer time, incrementing his profits. Currently holding 294,783 shares, his portion of the firm escalates to a value of roughly $6.5 million. His last purchase was about two weeks ago, and the stock upside has already exceeded 9% from this latest buy.

Carmike’s largest hedge fund bull is, by far, Mark Broach’s Manatuck Hill Partners, which holds $31.2 million worth of the stock.

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Disclosure: none

*Includes 5,000 shares of restricted stock (previously reported) under the Carmike Cinemas, Inc. 2004 Incentive Stock Plan which will fully vest on August 1, 2014; 2,083 shares of restricted stock (previously reported) which will vest on March 11, 2014; 12,000 shares of restricted stock (previously reported) which will vest on March 15, 2015, 5,500 shares of restricted stock (previously reported) which will vest on February 28, 2016, and 10,080 performance shares (previously reported) which will be issued in 2015, in all cases provided Reporting Person remains an employee on such dates.