Thomas Ferguson (Insider Trades), CEO and president of AZZ Inc. (AZZ), acquired 7,500 shares for $55.24 per share on Oct. 10. The total transaction was $414,300.
AZZ is a global provider of galvanizing services, welding solutions, specialty electrical equipment and highly engineered services. The company has a market cap of $1.42 billion.
The number and volume of insider buys increased each year from 2013 to 2015, which correlates to an overall increasing trend line in AZZ's month-end price. There were four insider purchases for a total of 1,153 shares in 2013 and six insider buys for a total of 1,608 shares the following year. In 2015, there were 13 insider purchases for 17,876 shares. Year to date there have been 14 transactions for 11,799 shares.
Ferguson has purchased 8,707 shares since the start of the year; he acquired 16,207 AZZ shares in four transactions since 2015. Ferguson’s earliest transaction with the company, a purchase of 7,500 shares for $41.99 per share, increased in value by about 30% since the acquisition in January 2015. For more information about insider trades with AZZ, click here.
For the second fiscal quarter ended on Aug. 31 the company reported net income of $10.023 million or 38 cents per share. This is down from the second fiscal quarter’s reported net income of $17.243 million or 67 cents per share. Net sales also decreased from $214.246 million to $195.045 million when comparing the same time periods. Specifically, net sales and operating income decreased in both energy and galvanizing sectors.
Ferguson commented that the second fiscal quarter is “seasonally weaker due to a smaller number of outages and turnarounds that occur during the summer months.” Ferguson continued by addressing the decrease in volumes for the company’s galvanizing segment, which caused the company to make “the strategic decision to reduce capacity in the Southern U.S. by closing production at two of [the company’s] galvanizing plants and repurposing a third plant from standard galvanizing to [the company’s] new galvanized rebar product line.” The company announced a 13.3% increase in quarterly cash dividend from 15 cents to 17 cents per share of common stock on Oct. 1.
On Oct. 3 AZZ announced the divestiture of its Nuclear Logistics LLC operating business unit to Westinghouse Electric Company. Nuclear Logistics LLC is the largest third-party supplier of safety-related equipment to the nuclear industry. The transaction is expected to close in fall 2016.
According to GuruFocus.com, AZZ has a business predictability rank of 4 out of 5 stars. For more information about business predictability rank, click here.
Chuck Royce (Trades, Portfolio) and Steven Cohen (Trades, Portfolio) both reduced their positions in AZZ during the second quarter. Royce sold 51,600 shares for an average per share price of $57.22, reducing his holding by 42.56%. Royce has decreased his position in the company every quarter since the first quarter of 2014. The total estimated gain of the holding since the first quarter of 2011 is 85%. Cohen sold out all 100,700 shares held after acquiring the shares in the previous quarter for an average per share price of $51.92. For more information about guru trades with AZZ, click here.
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