Joseph Sullivan (Insider Trades), CEO, president and chairman of Legg Mason Inc. (LM), bought 25,000 shares of the company on Jan. 26. The average price per share was $29.81, making the total transaction $745,250.
Legg Mason is a global asset management firm with a market cap of $3.19 billion and a P/S ratio of 1.17.
Insider buys dropped from over two transactions totaling 2 million shares in 2012 to one buy of 78 shares the next year. There were no insider buys in 2014 and 2015, but there have been six totaling 65,500 shares in the first month of 2016 alone. This trend may be in part due to a drop in Legg Mason's month-end price from $57.27 to $29.75 starting in the last half of 2014 and continuing to decline through January 2016. 
Along with Sullivan, six other Legg Mason insiders acquired shares of the company on Jan. 26. Among these insiders, Executive Vice President and CFO Peter Nachtwey (Insider Trades) purchased 20,000 shares at $29.92 per share, and Allen Reed (Insider Trades), Legg Mason director, acquired 10,000 shares of Legg Mason at $29.68 per share. For more information about insider trades with Legg Mason, click here.
The company reported net loss of $138.6 million in its third fiscal quarter ended on Dec. 31, 2015. Net income is down from $77.0 million reported in the third fiscal quarter 2014. Diluted net income per share also declined during this period. Annual net income also shows the same trend.
Like net income, revenue declined when comparing fiscal third quarters of 2014 to 2015. Legg Mason reported revenue of $719.0 million in December 2014 and $659.6 million in December 2015.
Sullivan acknowledged the third fiscal quarter results, commenting that it “reflected a challenging period for asset management firms,” but despite long-term flows in the negative, Legg Mason produced, “another quarter of positive fixed income flows.” On Jan. 22, Legg Mason announced the acquisition of a minority equity position in Precidian Investments, which solves market structure issues with the ETF marketplace in particular. Legg Mason purchased preferred equity, which grants the company the rights of a holder of 19.9% of common equity and also allows Legg Mason the option to purchase a majority interest in the common equity. Precidian is known for “continuous innovation,” Sullivan commented, and it is the “perfect partner” to work with Legg Mason on product development.
According to GuruFocus.com, Legg Mason has a business predictability rank of 1 out of 5 stars. For more information about business predictability rank, click here.
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