The Past Week's Notable Insider Buys: Babcock & Wilcox, Designer Brands And More

• Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, especially when markets are near all-time highs.
• Some insiders took advantage of public share offerings in the past week.
• Biotechs were well represented on this list of last week's insider purchases.

Conventional wisdom says that insiders and 10% owners really only buy shares of a company for one reason -- they believe the stock price will rise and they want to profit from it. So insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, particularly when there is uncertainty in the markets or the markets are near all-time highs.

With the earnings-reporting season over, plenty of insiders are now free to add to their stakes. Here are some of the most noteworthy insider purchases that were reported in the past week.

Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises Inc BW saw a 10% owner acquire more than $64.75 million worth of shares last week. That was more than 10.72 million shares of this Akron-based industrial at an average price of $6.04 apiece. Note that some directors and officers were buying shares back in February.

A director at PennyMac Financial Services Inc PFSI stepped up to the buy window while other insiders were selling shares. That director added about 450,200 shares to the stake, bringing it to over 1.21 million. At prices that ranged from $61.73 to $63.71 per share, the transaction totaled around $28.21 million.

Clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Instil Bio Inc TIL has completed its IPO. CEO Bronson Crouch and two other insiders picked up 1.20 million shares at the $20 per share offering price. That cost them $24 million. The stock has traded as high as $29.49 but ended the week at $27.06 a share.

One Fortress Transprtn and Infr Investrs LLC FTAI director took advantage of a public offering to purchase 800,000 shares via trust of this New York-based aircraft lessor and crude oil terminal operator. At $25 per share, that totaled around $20 million. Shares ended last week at $26.90.

Also taking advantage of a public offering, a beneficial owner returned last week to acquire indirectly another 875,000 Prothena Corporation PLC PRTA shares. At the offering price of $20.75 per share, the total for that came to over $18.15 million. Note that the same director bought about 343,000 shares in February.

The nearly 1.18 million Designer Brands Inc DBI shares that Executive Chair Jay Schottenstein and another director indirectly purchased altogether had share prices ranging from $13.70 to $14.25. These transactions cost them more than $16.48 million. Another officer sold less than 95,000 shares last week too.

A public offering of Solid Biosciences Inc SLDB shares brought a beneficial owner to the table too. The almost 2.61 million shares acquired for $5.75 apiece cost that owner just shy of $15 million and raised the stake to more than 13.41 shares. The stock ended the week at $5.86 apiece.

Rubius Therapeutics Inc RUBY saw a 10% owner indirectly add 210,000 shares recently. The purchase price for this Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company averaged $29 a share, and the total came to about $6.09 million. However, shares were last seen trading at $24.62 apiece.

A pair of Finch Therapeutics Group Inc FNCH directors took advantage of its IPO. The combined 191,100 or so shares they acquired, at the offering price of $17 a share, added up to about $3.25 million. Note that the shares ended the week trading at $16 apiece, after going as high as $22.50.

And, after purchasing 50,000 Cortexyme Inc CRTX shares earlier this month, a director added 50,000 more via trust last week. At per-share prices ranging from $33.51 to $33.87, the latest transaction cost the director almost $1.69 million. His stake is up to more than 1.84 million shares.

See also: The Past Week's Notable Insider Buys Include Coupang, Keurig Dr Pepper, IPOs And More

Note that some smaller amount of insider buying at ARMOUR Residential REIT, Inc. ARR, First Citizens BancShares Inc FCNCA, Good Times Restaurants Inc. GTIM, Maxar Technologies Inc MAXR and Ribbon Communications Inc RBBN was reported in the past week as well.

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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