Insiders at regional banks continued their aggressive stock buildup in January, as the sector's low equity prices and merger speculation fueled a buying binge.
The hottest banks for insiders were Trustmark Corp., Jackson Miss., and Integra Financial Corp., in Pittsburgh. But such smaller banks as Star Banc Corp., Cincinnati, and Intercontinental Bank, Miami, also enjoyed strong insider interest.
"With all the talk about consolidation and Glass-Steagall repeal making the acquisition mix more interesting, you are seeing jockeying for positions and people speculating for potential deals," said Robert Gabele, president of CDA/Investnet, which provided the data.
Regional bank insiders began aggressively buying last October as bank stocks swooned to 52-week lows.
But the persistence of the transactions indicates interest is tied to more than just value buying, Mr. Gabele said.
Still, he doubted most investors were acting in anticipation of an imminent deal.
The insider buying was hardly a universal phenomenon. There were almost as many sellers as buyers at First Interstate Bancorp and at Wells Fargo & Co., where former CEO Carl Reichardt exercised a large number of options and then sold them.
And two directors at Roosevelt Financial Group sold more than 100,000 shares each in January.
Nonetheless, the vast majority of active insiders in January were buyers.
At Trustmark Corp., there were five insider buys and no sells. At Star Banc there were five insider buys in the month.
At Miami's $1 billion-asset Intercontinental Bank, a primary takeover candidate in Florida, three vice presidents and chairman William H. Allen exercised large options positions in early January.
None of the positions were due that month and Mr. Allen's options for 10,000 shares was not due to expire until 2002.
At Integra there were nine buys in January. Integra's director Robert A. Paul, the company's leading insider shareholder, made five buys totaling 40,000 shares to bring his holdings to 391,278 shares, or more than 1% of all shares outstanding.
At St. Louis-based Roosevelt Financial, the nation's ninth-largest thrift, director Douglas T. Breeden sold 100,000 shares to bring his holdings down to 204,468. And director Bradbury Dyer sold 153,500 shares and now owns 636,837 shares.
Mr. Dyer had been a director with Farm and Home Financial Corp., which Roosevelt bought last year, so this represented his first opportunity to liquidate some of his holdings, said Roosevelt's general counsel, Daniel O'Donnell.
At Wells Fargo, Mr. Reichardt, the former CEO and currently a director, exercised his option on 351,650 shares of common between $40.50 and $110.75, and immediately sold them for between $141 and $148.50.
Mr. Reichardt now holds 150,549 shares. The company did not respond to questions regarding the sale.
At Shawmut National Corp., director Stillman B. Brown bought 10,000 shares on Jan. 23, less than a month before the New England regional announced a sale to Fleet Financial Group. Merger discussions didn't begin until Feb. 6, according to a Shawmut spokesperson.
At J.P. Morgan & Co., three officers, Michael Enthoven, James Flynn, and Cary N. Potter, unloaded thousands of shares in January to significantly pare their holdings.
