Multiple Insiders Have Bought Finance and Insurance Companies Including Citigroup

THL Credit, Inc. (NASDAQ:TCRD), a private equity and debt firm, had three different company officers purchase shares in December. THL stands out for its dividend yield of almost 9%, based on quarterly payments of about 30 cents per share over the last year. The fact that the company has only been paying dividends for a short time, and has been raising them to that level, could be taken as a good sign- increased dividend payments could be on the way- or a bad one as it would be more likely to cut or suspend its dividend. THL trades at a slight premium to book value and at 11 times consensus earnings for 2013.

An officer and multiple Board members have bought shares of Hilltop Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HTH), a property and casualty insurance company with a market capitalization of about $730 million (an average of 320,000 shares are traded per day and the current price is about $13, so there is plenty of dollar volume). Hilltop reported a slight increase in revenue in the third quarter of 2012 versus a year earlier. The P/B ratio is 1.2, so the market is pricing this company slightly above book value as well.

Mortgage data, analytics, and services company Corelogic Inc (NYSE:CLGX) is another stock seeing consensus insider purchases. CoreLogic’s stock price is up 82% from a year ago, which has carried it to a high trailing P/E multiple of 18. The sell-side expects earnings growth in 2013, and so the current-year P/E is only 16, but we would still be wary of investing in the stock. Highfields Capital Management, which is managed by Jonathon Jacobson, cut its stake in the company during the third quarter of 2012 but still reported a position of 6.1 million shares at the end of September (find Jacobson’s favorite stocks).

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.