Insider Trades: 14 director buys including a Geoff Wilson spree (and 3 sells)

Welcome back to the Insider Trades series, a summary of director transactions – those on-market trades valued above $10,000 – between 8 May and 12 May 2023.

Among the directors of ASX large-caps, this time around we’ve found 17 transactions – including only three sells.

The largest single transaction was at global automotive retailer Eagers Automotive. We also saw several instances of multiple stock buys from directors within the same company – including four at listed investment company WAM Strategic Value, three at Macquarie Group, and four at Charter Hall.

Eagers Automotive: The sale of more than $3.5 million of stock by non-executive director and Board member Michelle Prater was easily the biggest director transaction last week. The largest in its category, Eagers’ stock appeared on another of our screeners recently. Its $14.80 share price on 9 March marked its 52-week high point. It has since retraced slightly, trading at $13.60 as of the latest close, and the stock is up 26% in 2023 so far.

WAM Strategic Value: On something of a WAR-path (sorry for the bad pun), Wilson Asset Management founder Geoff Wilson made six buys totalling a touch over $220,000 during the month. The LIC, which targets underperforming investment vehicles with a view to executing turnarounds, is trading at 96 cents a share – a 17% discount to its NTA as of 11 May 2023.

WAM insider buys (Source: Market Index)

Charter Hall Group: The company itself made the second-largest transaction of the week, with director David Harrison buying $550,000 worth of stock. David Ross scooped up a little over $82,000 of stock. Harrison also bought $38,000 and $44,000 of stock via two Charter Hall REITs.

Charter Hall 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Macquarie Group: Last week saw two share buys from Rebecca McGrath – totalling $127,000 – and one $50,000 sell. The diversified investment bank and financial services behemoth was called out in a recent episode of Livewire’s Buy Hold Sell for its ongoing strong earnings potential.

Macquarie Group 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

This article was altered on 23 May 2023 to correct the 11 May Eagers Automotive (APE) share price and Michelle Prater's transaction size.