Cluster of Insider Sales at IT Research Firm – Should You Sell? Guys at Baron Say No; Plus Other Insider Trading

Board Member of Catalent Buys Sizable Block of Shares

One member of Catalent Inc. (NYSE:CTLT)’s nine-member board piled up some shares this week as well. Board member Donald E. Morel bought 10,000 shares on Wednesday at prices ranging from $29.20 to $29.32 per share. Dr. Morel currently owns an aggregate of 18,799 shares after the purchase.

The provider of advanced delivery technologies and development solutions for drugs, biologics and consumer health products has seen its market capitalization rise by 22% in the past year. Catalent Inc. (NYSE:CTLT) recently announced the completion of its acquisition of Accucaps Industries Limited, a Canada-based developer and manufacturer of over-the-counter high-potency and conventional pharmaceutical softgels. As Catalent has long-term supply agreements, which represent a revenue stream over a period of years, the company’s backlog shows future service revenues from work not yet completed. The company’s backlog totaled $958.3 million at the end of December, up from $827.5 million on June 30. More importantly, Catalent anticipates recognizing roughly 67% of revenue from the December backlog by the end of June of 2017. Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management trimmed its position in Catalent Inc. (NYSE:CTLT) by 51% during the fourth quarter, to around 989,000 shares.

CFO of Struggling e-Commerce Software Firm Boosts Equity Stake After Share Price Plunge

A well-informed and influential member of ChannelAdvisor Corp (NYSE:ECOM)’s executive team also purchased some shares earlier this week. Chief Financial Officer Mark Cook, former Vice President of Finance and Controller of open-source technology firm Red Hat Inc. (NYSE:RHT), snatched up 10,000 shares on Thursday at a weighted average price of $10.67 per share. Mr. Cook currently owns a total of 105,058 shares.

The insider purchase comes shortly after the shares of the e-commerce software firm plunged by nearly 25% on the day following the company’s release of lower-than-expected financial results for the fourth quarter. ChannelAdvisor Corp (NYSE:ECOM), a provider of SaaS solutions enabling retailer and branded manufacting customers to integrate and manage their merchandise sales across hundreds of online channels, has opted to focus more on larger customers in recent years, but the company has been struggling with execution. The software company has initiated an aggressive overhaul process, shuffling leadership roles and adjusting its pricing strategy. Although demand for ChannelAdvisor’s platform exists, the company has been struggling to close deals due to pricing hurdles and the executive change-ups, among other things. Should investors anticipate an inflection point in 2017? The insider transaction mentioned above seems to suggest so. The shares of ChannelAdvisor are 26% in the red thus far in 2017. Mark N. Diker’s Diker Management added a 175,466-share position in ChannelAdvisor Corp (NYSE:ECOM) to its portfolio during the December quarter.

Let’s head to the last page of this insider trading article, where we’ll focus our attention on the fresh insider selling observed at two other companies.