CEO Thomas Kingsbury Just Bet $2 Million on Kohl’s (KSS) Stock

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  • Kohl’s (KSS) CEO Thomas Kingsbury recently disclosed the purchase of 92,500 shares of the company.
  • Insiders have amounted to a net activity of 759,692 shares purchased in the past year.
  • KSS stock is down about 6% year-to-date (YTD).
Image of Kohl's logo on a Kohl's store
Source: Sundry Photography/Shutterstock.com

Kohl’s (NYSE:KSS) stock is up more than 4% today following CEO Thomas Kingsbury’s first insider buy as CEO. Kingsbury was appointed CEO of the company back in February.

Yesterday, Kingsbury purchased 92,500 shares worth $2.01 million on the open market at an average price of $21.82 per share. Following the buy, Kingsbury now directly owns a total of 228,993 shares. According to Finviz, the last four open market transactions for KSS stock were all buys and include transactions from Directors Peter Boneparth and Jonas Prising.

Reportedly, KSS insiders have purchased 667,192 shares and sold 120,726 shares during the past year. That shares purchased figure has not yet updated to include Kingsbury’s buy, however. With his buy included, insiders have netted a total of 759,692 shares purchased during the past year. That certainly seems to be a positive insider signal.

CEO Thomas Kingsbury Buys $2 Million of KSS Stock

Through the famous words of Peter Lynch, insiders may sell shares for a variety of reasons, but they only buy shares for one reason: they believe the price will go up. Kingsbury’s significant purchase shows that he’s willing to bet his own money on the future success of Kohl’s. Still, the retailer has had a difficult past year, which has been reflected in KSS stock’s loss of about 60% over the past year.

During the fourth quarter, or the holiday season, Kohl’s reported revenue of $5.78 billion, which came in below the analyst expectation for $5.99 billion. The company’s EPS loss of $2.49 also came below the analyst estimate for 98 cents by a wide margin. On top of that, Q4 same-store sales were down by 6.6% year-over-year (YOY).

Kingsbury attributed the disappointing earnings to inflation and a hesitant consumer. On the bright side, Kohl’s plans on adding Sephora locations to all of its 1,000-plus stores. In addition, the CEO added that store sales patterns began to improve as Q4 progressed.

Kohl’s has recently undergone a major management change as well. In the past few months, the company has added Kingsbury, retail veteran Dave Alves as Chief Operating Officer and Nick Jones as the Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer. Only time can tell if this new management will turn things around for the retailer.

On the date of publication, Eddie Pan did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2023/03/ceo-thomas-kingsbury-just-bet-2-million-on-kohls-kss-stock/.

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