RE:Hopefully this plunge the necessary catalyst!Hi Don,
Boynton buying 20,000 shares at a cost of $21,000 is an interesting development.
- This is the first insider in years to buy shares on the open market. Not sure what to make of that move as I thought the CEO not buying shares was too conspicuous a signal of a lock-up agreement with Fairfax. Perhaps there's a limit to how many shares they can purchase;
- Last year of an adjusted basis Boynton earned $2.543 million if you annualize his salary. Most would argue that was a princely sum for delivering terrible results. Mind you, most would also say that is consistent with Torstar's compensation policies. The non-executive Chairman earns $275,000 for presiding over this mess. My point here is $21,000 represents .008% of Boynton's 2017 compensation. Hardly a strong endorsement or signal of confidence at this stage.
Conclusions: This is a signal of desperation by Boynton in an attempt to hang onto his job. No one on the Board or the Voting Trust can really believe he knows what the hell he is doing. Spending $21,000 is lunch money for Boynton and is a smokescreen. Maybe he can stand in front of employees and tell them he believes so much in the company and the transformation plan that he has made a significant personal investment. His hope would be that no one would bother to look up the relationship between his income and how much he actually invested.
If he and the Board bought a couple million shares with their own money that would be a tangible sign of confidence. That's not going to happen as any of them in this charade any longer. Time for Fairfax to put them out of their misery.