Lawrence Gellerstedt (Insider Trades), CEO and president of Cousins Properties Inc. (CUZ), bought 27,000 shares of the company on Sept. 11. The average price per share was $9.24, for a total transaction cost of $249,480. Cousins Properties is a real estate company that invests in urban office assets and mixed-use developments in the Sunbelt markets. The market cap for the company is $2.02 billion and the P/S ratio is 5.27.
Insider buys of CUZ increased, while insider sales decreased from 2013 to 2015. There were a total of 28 CUZ insider sales of 1,722,593 shares in 2013 alone, compared to one insider sale totaling 4,604 in 2014, and none from January to September 2015. On the other hand, there were no insider buys of CUZ during 2013, but five transactions totaling 321,943 shares, and four transactions of 152,000 shares in 2014 and January to September 2015 respectively. Gellerstedt made a total of 11 insider buys amounting to 152,611 shares of the company, and no insider sales since March 2007. His earliest insider buy decreased by about 70% since the purchase. CUZ CIO Michael Connolly (Insider Trades), also bought 38,807 shares of the company at an average price per share of $9.23 on Sept. 11. Additionally, Gregg Adzema (Insider Trades), CUZ executive vice president and CFO, bought 10,000 shares of the company at an average price of $9.08 per share on Sept. 10. 
For more information about insider transactions with Cousins Properties Inc., click here.
Cousins Properties reported a net income of $7.951 million, or $0.04 per share in the second quarter of 2015. Net income for the company increased in comparison to a net loss of $2.223 million, or $0.01 per share reported in the second quarter of 2014. Cousins Properties also reported an increase from $84.505 million, to $97.903 million in revenue during the same period of time. Annual revenue for the company increased 11.44% since 2010. The company announced its third quarter dividend of $0.08 per share on July 16. Colorado Tower, a $126 million office development by Cousins Properties was announced to be 100% leased eight months after construction was completed. Gellerstedt commented that “this project represents another outstanding win for Cousins,” and its shareholders. Cousins purchased 2100 Ross, an office tower in the Arts District of Dallas, Texas, for a gross price of $131 million. The company’s board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to $100 million in common stock for the next two years on Sept. 8. The company anticipates funding the repurchase program with proceeds from non-core asset sales.
According to GuruFocus.com information, Cousins Properties has a business predictability rank of 1 out of 5 stars. For more information about business predictability rank, click here.
Two gurus reduced their stake in the company during the second quarter of 2015. Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) (Trades, Portfolio) of Renaissance Technologies LLC, sold 507,039 shares of CUZ for an average price of $10.19 per share. The transaction reduced his holding with the company by 46.05%. The total estimated gain of the holding since the fourth quarter of 2014 is -16%. Chris Davis (Trades, Portfolio) (Trades, Portfolio) also sold 35,598 shares of CUZ, reducing his stake in the company by 3.46%. For more information about guru trades with Cousins Properties Inc., click here.
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