Courtesy of Benzinga.
Companies with micro market capitalization generally receive less news coverage than larger companies. This lack of news coverage may make it difficult for investors to make informed decisions about these companies. Management, however, has a day-to-day view of these company’s activities. Thus, investors may want to pay special attention micro cap companies’ insider transactions.
Below are five micro cap companies with recent insider purchases:
Center Bancorp (NASDAQ: CNBC): On July 5, four directors bought shares at an average price of around $11.29 per share. Center Bancorp provides banking services to commercial, industrial, and governmental customers in New Jersey. Directors Raymond Vanaria, Howard Kent, Lawrence Seidman and Frederick Fish bought 115, 204, 177 and 195 Center Bancorp shares, respectively.
On May 25, Center Bancorp declared an 83.37 percent quarterly dividend increase to $0.055 per share. In 2012, Center Bancorp had a first quarter net income available to shareholders of $4,090,000, compared to $2,872,000 in the first quarter of 2011. Year-to-date, Center Bancorp traded about 15.8 percent higher.
Friday, Center Bancorp traded around 0.6 percent lower.
Omega Protein (NYSE: OME): On July 1, David Owen, a director at Omega Protein, bought 1,356 shares at an average price of approximately $7.28 per share. On the same day, Gary Allee, another director, purchased 1,682 shares for a total of $12,245. Omega Protein is a nutritional ingredient company.
Omega is the US leader in production of omega-3 fish oil and specialty fishmeal products. On June 13, the company reported, for an eight-week period, a 29 percent increase in its total fish catch compared to the similar period in 2011. For the first quarter of 2012, Omega Protein saw a decrease in revenues by 37 percent, compared to the fourth quarter of 2011. Even so, the company saw increases in net income by $1.2 million, compared to the fourth quarter of 2011.
Bret Scholtes, Omega Protein’s President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “Despite lower-than-normal sales volumes, financial results in the first quarter improved over the fourth quarter of 2011. Our fishing business has had a busy and productive ‘off-season’, as we diligently invested labor and capital to prepare for the start of the 2012 fishing season. At the same time, we continued to make significant progress in our human nutrition business, generating strong supplement ingredient sales growth and recording our first sales of OmegaActiv™ fish oil to the human supplement market.”
Omega Protein traded down about 0.8 percent on Friday.
Marchex (NASDAQ: MCHX): On June 29, a director a Marchex, Leon Felman bought 2,599 shares at a price of $7.27 per share. Marchex is a digital call advertising and small business marketing company that operates mostly in the United States.
On May 14, Marchex announced that its Board of Directors approved an increase to its share repurchase program of $1 million. Also, on April 13, the company declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.02 per share on its common stock. In the first quarter of 2012, the company had revenues of $35.5 million, compared to $29.1 million in the same period last year. Although Marchex increased first-quarter revenues, it reported a first-quarter net loss increase to $788,000 from $513,000 in the same period last year.
Russell C. Horowitz, Marchex Chairman and CEO, commented on the first quarter results: “We are focused on the primary drivers of long-term growth in our business, including building a unique technology platform centered on call analytics and performance advertising solutions that can support the needs of our advertiser and publisher partners. We will continue focusing on adding new advertising and publishing partners, as well as deepening our relationships with existing ones.”
Marchex traded up about 4.8 percent on Friday.
Cleveland BioLabs (NASDAQ: CBLI): On July 2, David Hohn, a director at Cleveland BioLabs, bought 1,000 shares at an average price of around $1.61 per share. The company develops and discovers products for cancer treatment and protection of normal tissues from radiation and acute stresses.
Cleveland BioLabs has had recent interaction with the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) regarding its drug CBLB502. Also, Cleveland BioLabs majority owned subsidiary, Incuran, recently announced that clinical testing was opened with the regulatory authority in the Russian Federation.
Yakov Kogan, Cleveland BioLabs’ CEO, stated, “We believe that the FDA meeting has brought clarity to our human clinical program and that it is working with us on our pivotal animal program. With this clarity, we intend to re-approach our various funding agency partners to solicit financial assistance with CBLB502’s defense development. The CBLB502 advanced cancer trial is actively screening and enrolling patients.”
Cleveland BioLabs traded down about 2 percent on Friday.
NGP Capital Resources (NASDAQ: NGPC): On July 2, Edward Blessing, a director at NGP, bought 287 shares at an average price of close to $6.95 per share. NGP Capital Resources is a business development company that specializes small and mid-size market companies. Friday, NGP Capital Resources had a market capitalization of around $157.7 million.
On June 14, NGP Capital Resources announced that its Board of Directors had declared a quarterly dividend to stockholders that is $0.13 per common share. Also, on the same day, the company reported that it repurchased 250,029 shares at an average price of $6.51 per share in May. This repurchase totaled approximately $1.6 million.
Steve Gardner, President and CEO, commented, “This marks the thirtieth consecutive quarterly dividend since our initial public offering in November 2004, and an 8.3% increase from the dividend declared in the first quarter of 2012. As we continue to redeploy available capital and barring any unforeseen circumstances, we believe there is potential for further improvement in earnings and dividends in the second half of the year.”
NGP Capital Resources traded up about 2.0 percent on Friday.
