Clover Health (NASDAQ:CLOV) co-founder and Executive Chairman Vivek Garipalli bought 531,700 shares of his troubled health insurance company this month. The executive now owns over 1.4 million shares. Clover Health has 407 million shares outstanding. Warrants could boost that to 497 million shares.
Clover came public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) run by Chamath Palihapitiya in 2021. CLOV stock is up more than 10% as of this writing to around $2.2o per share. Its market capitalization at that price is a little over $1 billion.
The Clover Story
Garipalli is currently listed as Executive Chairman of Clover Health. The company sells Medicare Advantage plans, its chief asset a telehealth system called the Clover Assistant.
The public face of the company has been CEO Andrew Toy, a tech executive who previously sold a startup called Divide to Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL).
Garipalli’s role was downplayed after the initial public offering (IPO) because he was best-known for CarePoint, a company accused of fraud. CarePoint was the focus of a February 2021 report from short seller Hindenburg Research, which said the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating kickbacks there.
After trading as high as $15 per share in 2021, CLOV stock quickly lost 80% of its value. It fell below $1 per share last year, briefly recovered to the $1.50 mark and was selling at 70 cents as recently as April.
Clover Health has yet to show a profit as a public company. But it lost “only” $187 million last year, a huge improvement over the $588 million lost in 2021.
Clover has recently attracted the interest of traders at Stocktwits, who are bullish. One notes that Garipalli only began buying new stock on Aug. 9. Bulls call Clover Health a Software as a Service (SaaS) company with no debt, capable of seeing a GAAP profit.
What Happens Next?
The Garipalli purchases could be the prelude to a sale of the company. Or, it could be a short squeeze.
On the date of publication, Dana Blankenhorn did not have (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.
