Mild Insider Selling at PriceSmart Inc. (PSMT) and ANSYS Inc. (ANSS); Insider Buying at Three Other Companies

Board Member of Struggling Mistras Group Boosts Ownership Stake

A member of Mistras Group Inc. (NYSE:MG)’s Board of Directors also filed a Form 4 with the SEC on Thursday to disclose some security purchases. Nicholas DeBenedictis, a member of the seven-member Board of Directors at Mistras Group, reported the purchase of 2,500 shares on Thursday at $22.52 apiece and 2,500 shares on Wednesday for $22.75 each, all of which are held by his spouse, who currently owns an aggregate of 10,000 shares. Mr. DeBenedictis holds a direct ownership stake of 16,479 shares.

The insider buying comes shortly after the global provider of technology-enabled asset protection solutions released its financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal year 2017 earlier this year. Mistras Group Inc. (NYSE:MG)’s revenues for the three months that ended November 30 decreased by 9% year-over-year to $176.6 million. The decrease mainly reflects weak North American oil and gas market conditions, as well as the timing of customer project-related spending. Nonetheless, despite experiencing a decline in revenues, the company’s gross profit margins improved for the sixth consecutive quarter. Mistras Group’s shares are up 10% in the past year. Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management added an 83,656-share position in Mistras Group Inc. (NYSE:MG) to its portfolio during the September quarter.

CEO of Low-Priced Clinical-Stage RNAi Company Purchases Shares

The man at the helm of RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp (NASDAQ:RXII) purchased some shares on Thursday. President and CEO Geert Cauwenbergh bought 10,000 shares yesterday at a weighted average price of $0.695 per share. Dr. Cauwenbergh currently owns an aggregate of 62,583 shares after the Thursday purchase.

As the shares of the clinical-stage RNAi company have dropped by 79% in the past one year, the insider purchase discussed above represents a classical example of when corporate insiders step up and buy shares. The so-called RNAi therapies are designed to “silence” the expression of a specific gene that may be over-expressed in a disease condition. RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp (NASDAQ:RXII)’s clinical development programs include RXI-109, deigned for the treatment of dermal and ocular scarring, and Samcyprone, designed for the treatment of a series of disorders such as warts, alopecia areata, non-malignant skin tumors and cutaneous metastases of melanoma. Earlier this month, RXi Pharmaceuticals completed the acquisition of privately-held MirImmune Inc., a company that develops next generation immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. Kevin Kotler’s Broadfin Capital LLC held 316,010 shares of RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp (NASDAQ:RXII) at the end of the September.

The final page of the article focuses on discussing fresh insider selling observed at two other companies.