Noteworthy Insider Buying at This Biopharmaceutical Company and 2 Other Battered Companies

BMC Stock Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:STCK) is another company that saw one of its Directors purchase shares this past week. Director James O’Leary bought two blocks of 5,000 shares on Wednesday at a weighted average price of $13.83, lifting his overall holding to 24,107 shares. This purchase comes nearly four months after Stock Building Supply Holdings merged with a privately-held building materials provider, called Building Materials Holding Corporation, to create a diversified lumber and building materials (LBM) distributor and solutions provider named BMC Stock Holdings.

The freshly-combined company expects to achieve run-rate cost synergies of $20 million-to-$25 million within the first year of the completion of its merger and $40 million-to-$50 million by the fourth quarter of 2017. As revealed by the U.S Census Bureau, multi-family housing starts in the nation reached 400,000 in 2015, increasing from 360,000 in 2014 and 310,000 in 2013. The continued tightening in the U.S labor market and sustained wage growth, as well as strengthening builder confidence and consumer sentiment, are anticipated to support new residential housing market growth throughout 2016. McGraw-Hill Construction anticipates multi-family housing starts to increase by 5% in 2016, but recent data suggests that this rate growth is not yet achievable. Housing starts for the multi-family segment rose to 356,000 in February. Even so, U.S housing starts recovered more-than-expected last month, registering their highest level in the past five months. This means that BMC Stock Holdings might be well-positioned to achieve cost synergies and attractive top-line growth without experiencing pressure from previously-anticipated worsening market conditions. A total of 15 hedge funds in our database had stakes in BMC at the end of 2015, compared to 11 registered at the end of the previous quarter. Shares of newly-formed BMC Stock Holdings are down by 13% year-to-date, which has persuaded some analysts to rate the stock as being undervalued. D.E. Shaw & Co. L.P., founded by David E. Shaw, owns 2.23 million shares of BMC Stock Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:STCK) as of December 31.