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Conagra Stock Surged in December. One Director Scooped Up Shares of the Slim Jim Maker. -- Barrons.com Conagra Stock Surged in December. One Director Scooped Up Shares of the Slim Jim Maker. -- Barrons.com Dow Jones By Ed Lin Conagra Brands stock surged in 2019, and as the year wound down, one director bought up shares of the maker of packaged foods. Conagra (ticker: CAG), whose brands include Chef Boyardee and Slim Jim, saw shares slump 5% in 2017, and then tumble 40% in 2018 as consumers lost their taste for even stalwart brands of packaged foods. Top-line disappointments both years unnerved investors. Conagra stock surged 60% in 2019 -- more than twice the 29% rise in the S&P 500 -- as the company managed to turn things around, punctuated by a strong fiscal-second-quarter report in December. Shares jumped 16% to close at $33.66 on Dec. 19, the day the company reported; Conagra stock went on to set a 2019 intraday high of $35.59, and ended 2019 at $34.24. As the shares were soaring in late December and into the new year, Conagra director Craig Omtvedt scooped up stock on the open market. Omtvedt paid $1.36 million over Dec. 31 and Jan. 2 for a total of 40,000 Conagra shares, an average per-share price of $33.99. Omtvedt, a retired chief financial officer of consumer-products firm Fortune Brands, now owns 75,027 shares, according to a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was the largest open-market purchase of stock by a Conagra insider since October 2006, when Gary Rodkin, then president and CEO, paid $1.84 million for 75,000 shares, an average price of $24.48 each. Rodkin retired in 2015. Omtvedt also bought Conagra stock earlier in 2019, paying $668,250 on June 28 for 25,000 shares, an average of $26.73 each. These stock purchases are the first by Omtvedt since he joined ConAgra's board in November 2016. The other Conagra shares he owns were received from the vesting of grants of restricted stock units from his service as a director. Conagra declined to make Omtvedt available for comment on his stock purchases. Morgan Stanley analyst Pamela Kaufman raised her price target on Conagra stock to $30 from $28 but maintained an Equal-Weight rating in a Dec. 20 research report. Kaufman noted that Conagra saw "solid organic growth across all of its segments." She noted that her new target price on Conagra stock remained below the market price, and remained on the sidelines because the stock is fairly valued. Conagra stock closed at $33.52 on Monday, 1.4% less than what Omtvedt paid for his latest stock purchase. Inside Scoop is a regular Barron's feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members -- so-called insiders -- as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups. |
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