These 3 Companies’ Insiders Ignore Wall Street’s Doomsayers

Talmer Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:TLMR) has seen four different insiders purchase shares so far this week. To start with, Director Barbara J. Mahone purchased 5,000 shares on Tuesday at a weighted average cost of $16.22 and currently holds a stake of 40,800 shares. Let’s move on to the insider purchases reported by the heavyweights of the company’s corporate structure. President and Chief Executive Officer David T. Provost snapped up 30,500 shares on the same day at prices varying from $16.06 to $16.32 per share, enlarging his overall holding to 638,393 shares. Chairman Gary Torgow also bought a 30,500-share block on Tuesday at a weighted average price of $16.23. After the recent purchase, the Chairman owns 639,340 units of common stock. An additional 64,800 shares were purchased by Chief Financial Officer Dennis L. Klaeser, who currently holds an ownership stake of 153,350 shares. The sizable block of shares was purchased at prices in the range of $15.99 to $16.30 per share.

Just recently, bank holding company Talmer Bancorp and Chemical Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CHFC) announced a cash-and-stock deal that will create one of the largest community banks in the Midwest. Under the terms of the merger agreement, each shareholder of Talmer will receive 0.4725 shares of Chemical Financial common stock and $1.61 per share in cash. The discrepancy between the current share price of Talmer and the deal price amounts to roughly $0.40, so insiders are either attempting to gain on this discrepancy or seeking to show their confidence that the freshly-announced merger deal represents a beneficial move. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of this year. Richard Mashaal’s Rima Senvest Management holds an ownership stake of 2.08 million shares of Talmer Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:TLMR) as of the end of the September quarter.

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