Donaldson Director Makes Company’s First Insider Purchase in a Year

Donaldson, Andrew Cecere: On Monday, Andrew Cecere, director at Donaldson Company, Inc. (NYSE:DCI), started a position at the company, acquiring 103 shares of common stock at $38.05 each. The purchase added up to approximately $3,919.00.

Donaldson Company, Inc. (NYSE:DCI)

This had been the first insider purchase at Donaldson in more than one year. Before Cecere, Wim Vermeersch, Vice President at the company, had acquired 2,000 shares in mid-2012, but hat sold most of them before April of 2013. Several other insiders like Jay L Ward, Tod E Carpenter, and Charles J McMurray (all three of them are Senior Vice Presidents) had been selling out their shares of the firm during September, 2013. However, Cecere has come to reverse this trend, infusing new confidence amongst investors. The stock rose almost 1% since the purchase, although it fell about 1.31% during Wednesday trading (as of Wed. Oct. 2nd, 1:42 PM EST).

The acquisition comes right after the Company’s Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to 15 million common shares, approximately 10% of its outstanding stock. “This new share repurchase program is consistent with the Company’s longstanding share repurchase philosophy.” We believe that the consistent repurchasing of our shares is another great way of returning value to our Shareholders, in addition to our dividend policy and our Company’s growth,´ said Jim Shaw, Donaldson’s CFO. Over the past 24 years, the Company has reduced its shares outstanding by an average of 2 percent per year” (BusinessWire).

Cecere is also a Vice Chairman and CFO at U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB), but he is usually not an active insider trader. According to our database, he made only 5 moves since 2010, all of them selling U.S. Bancorp stock.

Back to Donaldson, some (of its more than 15) hedge fund owners are worth mentioning. The largest hedge fund bull, by a wide margin, is Mario Gabelli’s Gamco Investors, which holds about $76,652,000 in shares, followed by Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, owner of roughly $39,757,000 in stock.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no position in any stocks mentioned

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