Thomas Burns (Insider Trades), CEO of Glaukos Corp. (GKOS), sold 162,254 shares for $30.07 per share on July 13 for a total transaction of $4,878,978.
The sale left Burns with a stake of 859,495 shares.
Glaukos is an ophthalmic medical technology company focused on the development and commercialization of products and procedures to transform the treatment of glaucoma. The company has a market cap of $1.0 billion.
The number of Glaukos insider sells increased from 2015 to 2016. There were no insider sells of the company in 2015; however there were 16 insider sells totaling 589,425 shares in the following year. There was also one insider buy of Glaukos, to date, totaling 2,500 shares. In comparison, Glaukos insiders acquired 10,276 shares of the company in four transactions during 2015.
Burns conducted eight transactions with the company since 2015; seven of these transactions were sells totaling 257,251 shares. Burns’ sole Glaukos insider buy of 1,388 shares increased in value by nearly 100% since then. Another Glaukos insider, Richard Harrison (Insider Trades), sold 5,700 shares for $30 per share on July 6. The number and volume of Glaukos shares sold directly relates to Glaukos' month end price. For more information about insider transactions with Glaukos, click here.
Glaukos reported gross profit of $19.971 million in the first quarter ended March 31. Gross profit increased from $11.872 million, which was the amount reported by the company in the previous year’s first quarter. Net income also increased from -$966,000, or -40 cents per share, to $897,000, or 3 cents per share in the same time period. Burns attributes the company’s “exceptional start in 2016” to the “continu[ed] success of [the company’s] flagship micro-scale glaucoma device, the iStent Trabecular Micro-Bypass Stent.” Glaukos' annual revenue follows an increasing trend line; however the company’s annual net income follows the opposite trend.
The company announced the planned retirement of Harrison, the CFO, on July 14. Harrison has held his position in the company since January 2008 and is planning to retire in 2017. Harrison will remain in his current position until a successor has been named, commenting that he will “do all that [he] can to faciliatate the transition to [his] successor.”
Ron Baron (Trades, Portfolio) reduced his stake in Glaukos by 42.14% during the first quarter, selling 17,427 shares at an average per share price of $17.45. Baron reduced his stake in the company every quarter since the initial purchase in the second quarter of 2015. The total estimated gain of the holding since the second quarter of 2015 is -13%. For more information about guru transactions with Glaukos, click here.
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