Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) and Two Other Companies Highlight Slow-Escalating Insider Buying

Nabors Industries Witnesses Insider Trading for First Time in Years

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE:NBR) had not witnessed any insiders buy or sell shares for a few years until last week. Director Howard Wolf purchased 15,000 shares on Thursday at a weighted average cost of $9.78 per unit, boosting his overall holding to 90,000 shares.

Nabors Industries is the operator of the world’s largest land-based drilling rig fleet. The company’s stock has gained 9% since the beginning of this year, but it is still down by 43% in the past 12 months. Nabors Industries operates as a provider of services for land-based and offshore oil and natural gas wells with a fleet consisting of 430 actively marketed rigs for land-based drilling operations and 42 actively marketed rigs for offshore drilling operations. The company’s largest customer in 2015 was state-owned company Saudi Arabian Oil Company; the world’s biggest oil producer accounted for 12% of Nabors Industries’ operating revenues last year. The demand of Nabors’ services represents a function of the capital spent by oil and gas companies on exploration, development and production activities. As a result, the company experienced a huge decline in dayrates and average number of rigs operating due to the decline in oil prices and reduced drilling activity.

Nabors Industries had long-term debt of $3.66 billion at the end of 2015, while cash and cash equivalents stood at $254.53 million. However, the company had $2.24 billion remaining under its $2.25 billion revolving facility and commercial paper program at the end of the year. It should be noted that Nabors repaid $975.1 million under its commercial paper program and revolving credit facility during 2015. All in all, the company’s balance sheet does not show signs of weakness at this point in time. Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group acquired a new stake of 6.10 million shares during the final quarter of 2015.

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