I recently discovered an item in the footnotes of
Post# of 40
"5. RELATED PARTY TRANSACTION On October 16, 2014, the Company repurchased 50,000 Class B shares from the Richardson Wildlife Foundation, an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, at a negotiated price of $9.91 per share. Edward Richardson, Chairman and CEO of the Company, also serves as President of the Richardson Wildlife Foundation. These shares were repurchased pursuant to the Company's share repurchase authorization approved by its Board of Directors. Mr. Richardson filed a Form 4 to record the gifting of his Class B shares. On August 9, 2013, the Company repurchased 300,000 Class B shares from Mr. Richardson at a negotiated price of $11.50 per share. On May 15, 2013, the Company repurchased 48,925 Class B shares from the Richardson Wildlife Foundation and an additional 200,000 Class B shares from Mr. Richardson at a negotiated price of $11.70 per share."
The CEO is using shareholder capital to fund his wildlife foundation without any economic benefit reciprocated to the shareholder. Many of these share buybacks that the company announces are not true share buybacks in the normal sense of the word. This is a very underhanded practice engaged by the company and I refuse to do business with a company that thinks this behavior is acceptable. For that reason alone, I have exited my position in RELL.