After covering the insider purchases of six different corporate insiders at EVINE Live Inc. (NASDAQ:EVLV) on Friday, several Form 4’s submitted with the SEC on the same day revealed that an additional three Directors purchased shares last week. Shares of EVINE Live are up a whopping 47% in the last five trading sessions, with the heavy insider buying activity at the company serving as one catalyst for the stock. Director Lowell W. Robinson purchased 5,000 shares on Thursday at a cost of $1.12 per share, boosting his ownership stake to 37,718 shares. Fred R. Siegel, another member of the company’s Board of Directors, bought a new stake of 12,000 shares a day earlier, which is entirely held through his Individual Retirement Account (IRA). Mr. Siegel also holds a direct ownership stake of 33,570 shares, which includes 22,570 restricted stock units. Last but not least, Director Landel C. Hobbs acquired 20,000 shares on Thursday at $1.06 apiece, which lifted his holding to 59,718 shares.
Just recently, Jeffrey Bronchick’s Cove Street Capital LLC, which currently owns 5.32 million shares of EVINE Live or 9.3% of the company’s total number of outstanding shares, went activist on the company, which may represent another catalyst for its stock. EVINE Live is a digital commerce company that operates a television shopping network, called EVINE Live, through which the company offers a range of proprietary, exclusive and name brand products in the following categories: jewelry & watches, home & consumer electronics; beauty; and fashion & electronics. Given the two strong catalysts for the company’s stock, such as shareholder activism and massive insider buying, it appears that EVINE Live represents an extremely attractive investment opportunity at the moment. In a fourth-quarter letter to investors, Cove Street Capital outlined that EVINE Live “is still in the very early innings of creating a viable home/online shopping network that not only competes with QVC and HSN, but is an online destination as more than 40% of sales are made online.” Cove Street Capital, which boosted its stake in EVINE Live by 4.19 million shares during the second quarter of 2015 to 4.49 million (the investment firm gradually increased its exposure to the company in the subsequent quarters), lost quite some money on their investment in the struggling digital commerce as the company has lost 80% of its market value in the 12 months. Nonetheless, Mr. Bronchick and his team believe that EVINE Live will “be a much better performer in the future”, considering the company’s “future earnings power and the value of its Boston TV station (a hidden but potentially meaningful asset)”. It appears that EVINE Live’s corporate insiders share the same line of thoughts with Cove Street Capital.
