INSIDER ACTION

Insiders Buy Before Big News?

Veris Residential is a REIT that has seen some recent insider buying. The CEO and a director bought on October 10th. As we can see from the graph, these are the only trades of VRE by insiders in the past year. This isn’t some routine trading and just the insiders moving some money around. This is very suspicious timing as on Oct 21st the stock jumped 20%, up 35% total since the insider purchases.

Why the Jump? The stock rose on the news of a hostile bid for VRE, valued at $4.3 billion including debt, from Kushner Companies, a real estate developer. In a letter disclosing the bid, Charles Kushner said “Our attempts at fruitful engagement with the board and management over the last several months have effectively been ignored.” VRE didn’t have an intention of selling, as we now know. But these insiders happened to buy at the exact right time, possibly thinking they could make some quick money on the buyout offer. Insiders buying right before big news, I am shocked.