Corvis Insiders Buy Up
lightreading.com
A recent rash of stock purchases by top execs at Corvis Corp. (Nasdaq: CORV - message board) is just another piece of a puzzle that Wall Street's trying to unravel.
According to documents filed yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), five top Corvis staffers, including CEO and chairman David R. Huber, acquired over 600,000 shares of stock at a discount price of $0.56 per share on June 13. (Corvis shares were selling for about $1.56 early today.)
Here's the breakdown, in alphabetic order.
Lynn D. Anderson, SVP, CFO, treasurer: 171,425 shares
James M. Bannantine, president: 143,000 shares
Timothy C. Dec, VP, chief accounting officer: 120,000 shares
David R. Huber, chairman and CEO: 53,574 shares
Kim D. Larsen, SVP, general counsel, secretary: 143,000 shares
While the total value of the buys is tiny by corporate standards --just about $353,359.44 -- the case is curious in that the execs are buying for the first time in nearly a year.
A call to Corvis for clarification went unanswered at press time.
According to Thomson Financial Network, the last time a Corvis honcho bought stock was in August 2002, when president James Bannantine, who joined the company in 2001 (see Corvis Loses Sales VP; Gains President ), bought about 500,000 shares.
At least two Wall Street analysts say the stock purchases are just another part of the conundrum that's Corvis. Of late, analysts are struggling to decide whether to treat the company as an equipment provider or a carrier, in light of its recent acquisition of Broadwing Inc. (NYSE: BRW - message board) (see Broadwing's Got a New Boss ).
"We've had the stock under review since the day after the Broadwing announcement, and it continues to be under review," says Simon Leopold of Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. Until he and his colleagues can confidently agree on a model for Corvis, he says, they'll stay without an opinion.
— Mary Jander, Senior Editor, Light Reading |
