Heavy Insider Buying Witnessed at Twitter Inc. (TWTR) and Two Battered BDCs

New Mountain Finance Corp. (NYSE:NMFC) saw one member of its Board of Directors buy a sizable block of shares this week. Director Steven B. Klinsky, also the founder of New Mountain Finance, bought 84,780 shares on Tuesday and 200,000 shares on Wednesday, at a weighted average price of $11.93 and currently owns 4.53 million shares. The Director holds an additional indirect ownership stake of 893,413 shares held through two separate trust funds. The shares of the BDC are down by 19% over the past year, after having dipped by nearly 7% year-to-date.

At the end of January, the BDC announced preliminary fourth quarter estimates ahead of its fourth quarter earnings release on February 29. The company said that it anticipates adjusted net investment income (NII) per share in the range of $0.33 to $0.35 for the quarter, which falls within its previously announced guidance. It is important to note that the energy sector comprises only 6.48% of the company’s total investments as of September 30, and the company does not anticipate any new underperforming assets. New Mountain Finance also disclosed that its net asset value (NAV) per share as of December 31 would most likely be in the range of $12.90 to $13.15, down from the figure of $13.73 per share registered at the end of September. The stock is currently trading at a visible discount to the NAV indicator, which probably explains the recent insider buying activity. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors LLC owns 144,979 shares of New Mountain Finance Corp. (NYSE:NMFC) as of December 31.

Let’s wrap up our discussion with Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR), which had two top executives buy sizable blocks of shares this week. Executive Chairman Omid Kordestani acquired 122,250 shares on Tuesday at prices that fell between $16.25 and $16.40 per share, lifting his overall holding to 522,250 shares. Moreover, Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto snapped up 15,500 units of common stock on the same day, at a weighted average cost of $16.08, enlarging his stake to 1.26 million shares.

The shares of Twitter have been under pressure over the past year or so, as stock market participants have soured on the company’s ability to keep growing its user base. In fact, investors’ main concerns around Twitter include its fast-expanding losses, relatively small user-base in comparison to other social media platforms, and its slowing user growth. The company’s average active users (MAUs) in the fourth quarter of 2015 increased by 9% year-over-year, but was flat quarter-over-quarter. Many investors tend to believe that Twitter is somewhat locked in a death spiral, but one should not forget that Twitter is still among the world’s most popular social media platforms. There is a camp of analysts who believe that Twitter can capitalize on its mobile application Vine, which allows users to create and distribute videos that can last up to six seconds. Of course, Vine will not generate revenue in-line with YouTube, but there is great opportunity for Twitter on this front. D.E. Shaw & Co. L.P., founded by David E. Shaw, cut its stake in Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) by 434,330 shares during the December quarter, to 645,514 shares.

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