Former CEO of Media-Ratings Firm Offloads Shares, Board Member at Low-Priced Drilling Contractor Buys Huge Block of Shares, and Other Transactions

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History shows that corporate insiders’ purchases of company stock outperform stock market gauges by a significant margin. On that note, the investment community finds one primary reason corporate insiders purchase shares of their companies – insiders believe the share price of their company’s stock does not reflect the “true” earnings power of the business. This thesis seems viable, as it’s hard to come up with alternative explanations as for why insiders would spend their hard-earned money to purchase shares.

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Board Member at Low-Priced Drilling Contractor Buys Shares

One member of Parker Drilling Company (NYSE:PKD)’s Board of Directors purchased a relatively sizeable block of shares at the end of the previous week. Peter Thomas Fontana bought 160,000 shares on Friday at a price of $1.90 per share. Mr. Fontana currently owns an aggregate of 168,021 shares following the purchase.

The provider of drilling services to the energy industry has seen the value of its shares plunge by 26% since the beginning of the year. Parker Drilling Company (NYSE:PKD)’s shares took a hit recently when the company announced both common stock and mandatory convertible stock offerings to increase liquidity. However, the drilling contractor does not seem to be in desperate need of capital, as the firm had $119.69 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand at the end of December and an additional $90.25 million undrawn capacity under its revolving credit facility. This is sufficient to finance the $40 million-to-$50 million planned capital spending for 2017. According to Parker Drilling’s management, “2016 was one of the most challenging operating environments in the energy services industry” and in the company’s 82 years of existence. Don Morgan’s Brigade Capital was the equity holder of 3.18 million shares of Parker Drilling Company (NYSE:PKD) at the end of December.

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The second page of the article discusses fresh insider buying at two other companies.

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