Well-Known Auto Insurer, Successful Furniture Specialist and Leading Engineering Consulting Firm Register Notable Insider Selling

Strong Performing Furniture Specialist Has Two Executives Offload Shares

La-Z-Boy Incorporated (NYSE:LZB) has seen two executives sell shares in the past two weeks or so. John Douglas Collier, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, discarded 15,000 shares on Monday at prices that fell between $26.65 and $27.00 per share, cutting his overall ownership to 81,065 shares. Louis M. Riccio, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President, offloaded 8,000 shares on Thursday at a weighted average price of $28.17, which trimmed his stake to 115,651 shares.

The second-largest manufacturer and distributor of residential furniture in the U.S. has seen its market value jump by 12% since the beginning of 2016. In fact, La-Z-Boy shares are currently trading slightly below their 52-week high of $29.34 reached in mid-October 2015. The recent insider selling comes shortly after La-Z-Boy Incorporated (NYSE:LZB) released its financial results for the fiscal 2016 that ended April 30, which revealed full-year sales of $1.53 billion versus $1.43 billion reported a year ago. The furniture specialist has been busy implementing its 4-4-5 store growth initiative, which involves expanding the company’s La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries stores network to 400 stores averaging $4 million in sales per store over the five-year period that started with fiscal 2014. The company recently completed the third year of this initiative, which has delivered strong results so far.

La-Z-Boy shares are currently trading at a forward PE multiple of 13.6, notably below the forward PE ratio of 17.0 for the consumer discretionary sector. A total of 21 asset managers from our system had stakes in the furniture specialist at the end of March, which accumulated 6% of the company’s total number of outstanding shares. Adage Capital Management, run by Phillip Gross and Robert Atchinson, owned roughly 857,000 shares of La-Z-Boy Incorporated (NYSE:LZB) on March 31.

Engineering Consulting Firm Has CEO Sell Shares

The man in charge of Exponent Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) has been discarding shares consistently over the past several months, so let’s have a look at the most recent insider selling. President and CEO Paul R. Johnston discarded 5,500 shares on Monday for $54.74 each, cutting his ownership to 75,536 shares. Dr. Johnston sold an additional 6,006 shares last Tuesday at $56.31 apiece.

The engineering and scientific consulting firm has seen the value of its shares rise “exponentially” in recent years, with the stock gaining 145% in the past five years and 23% in the past year alone. Hence, Dr. Johnston may be selling shares with the pure purpose of diversifying his holdings. Exponent Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) posted revenues of $83.16 million for the first quarter of 2016, up from $80.29 million recorded a year ago. Meanwhile, the company’s first-quarter bottom line grew to $15.35 million from $10.33 million year-over-year. The leading engineering consulting firm enjoyed good demand for its consulting services from a diverse pool of clients for both reactive and proactive projects.

Only ten hedge fund vehicles from our database were invested in Exponent at the end of the first quarter, amassing approximately 5% of the company’s outstanding shares. Given that Exponent’s shares are changing hands at around 28.5-expected earnings, it may be wise for insiders to offload some shares. Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies LLC was the owner of 595,400 shares of Exponent Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPO) at the end of March.

Disclosure: None