As the banking industry continued to tank this week, Wells Fargo & Co. chairman Richard Kovacevich engaged in a sort of faith-based management practice. He bought 100,000 shares of his company's stock Thursday at $8.05 a share on the open market. The purchase was disclosed in a Form 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wells Fargo's shares closed yesterday at a 52-week low of $8.12 per share; the company's 52-week high was $39.80 on Sept. 19. Kovacevich directly or indirectly owns more than 3.4 million shares of Wells Fargo stock. The company's latest proxy statement filed in March 2008, said Kovacevich has more than 12 million option shares that have exercise prices between $28.43 and $36.67 per share.
Buying by insiders of the Standard & Poor's 500 companies in February tripled to nearly $30 million compared with January, according to Thomson Financial, which tracks trades by company insiders including company officers and directors.
PATRICK KENNEDY
