Board Member at QUALCOMM Inc. (QCOM) Buys Shares After Billion-Dollar Apple Inc (APPL) Lawsuit, Plus Other Insider Trading

Board Member at Chipmaker QUALCOMM Inc. (QCOM) Buys Shares After Apple Strikes with Giant Lawsuit

One director at QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) also piled up some shares at the beginning of the week. Anthony J. “Tony” Vinciquerra, director of the company since July 2015, purchased 1,000 units of common stock on Monday at a price of $53.99 per share, which are held in the Anthony J. Vinciquerra Trust. Mr. Vinciquerra currently owns 2,000 shares via the trust, as well as an additional 1,280 shares held directly.

The insider purchase comes shortly after news emerged that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) sued QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) for roughly $1 billion, alleging the chipmaker charged Apple royalties for technologies Qualcomm had “nothing to do with.” The iPhone maker has been objecting to Qualcomm’s practice of charging for chips that help phones use wireless networks’ data plans and the chipmaker’s demands for a license fee based on the total price of the phones. As Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, said during a conference call with analysts earlier this week: “And so we were in a situation where the more we innovated with unique features like touch ID or advanced displays or cameras, just to name a few, the more money Qualcomm would collect for no reason, and the more expensive it would be for us to innovate.” Apple also recently added that “Despite being just one of over a dozen companies who contributed to basic cellular standards, Qualcomm insists on charging Apple at least five times more in payments than all the other cellular patent licensors we have agreements with combined.” Qualcomm’s shares are up by 23% in the past year despite having plunged by 18% during the past month. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management reported owning 9.69 million shares of QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) as of the end of 2016.

Cluster of Insider Selling at Chemical Financial Corporation After Merger Completion

Six different insiders at Chemical Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CHFC) offloaded shares earlier this week, so let’s have a brief look at the most voluminous sales. To begin with, Gary H. Torgow, Chairman of the Chemical Financial Corporation Board, sold 125,000 shares on Monday at prices varying from $48.25 to $48.74 per share, cutting his stake to 104,068 shares. Thomas C. Shafer, Executive Vice President and Director of Regional and Community Banking, discarded 51,393 shares on the same day at prices that fell between $48.25 and $48.74 per share. Mr. Shafer currently owns an aggregate of 36,867 shares after the sale. David T. Provost, Vice Chairman of the Board, liquidated 175,000 shares on Monday at an average price of $48.25 per share, a sale that trimmed his ownership to 101,768 shares.

The largest banking company headquartered and operating branch offices in Michigan has seen the value of its shares gain 54% in the past year. Chemical Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CHFC)’s total loans stood at $12.99 billion on December 31, up by $275 million quarter-over-quarter and $7.27 billion year-over-year. In late-August of 2016, Chemical Financial acquired Talmer Bancorp Inc. for a total consideration of $1.61 billion (i.e. stock consideration of $1.50 billion and cash consideration of $107.6 million), an acquisition that added $4.88 billion of loans as of the merger date. Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies owned around 197,000 shares of Chemical Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CHFC) at the end of September.

On the final page of this article we’ll discuss some insider selling at two other companies.