The hot stock of IntriCon Corp. cooled a bit last week amid a secondary stock offering that netted about $75 million, less underwriting fees, and about $27.5 million in stock sales by the CEO and other insiders.
Most of them sold stock for the first time in the 40-year history of the company.

Suburban St. Paul-based Intricon has run from about $8 per share a year ago to $63.60 last Wednesday night, just before the stock was priced and sold.

The secondary stock offering, which was priced at $55 per share, represented a 13.5 percent discount to its market value, or about a 3.5 percent premium to the upticking stock over the last 30 days, according to Chief Financial Officer Scott Longval.

The price of Intricon, which went from about 7.2 million to 8.4 million shares outstanding, dropped Thursday to as low as $56 per share. It rallied to $62.70 close on Friday. The stock rose slightly on Monday to a $62.85 per share close.

Longvall said the board chose to handle the insider selling as part of the announced secondary sale rather than have directors and officers make unannounced sales at market prices. Insiders sold about 25 percent of their holdings, including CEO Mark Gorder, a 40-year veteran who has never sold a share of the stock.

Of the nine insiders who sold into the offering, eight have never sold a share, including Gorder, and two other officers, Longval said.

Gorder, 71, sold 177,308 shares and still owns 450,000, valued at nearly $30 million.

Intricon, a sleepy stock for many years, boasts a market value in excess of $500 million.

The contract manufacturer of body-worn electronic medical-device components to Medtronic and hearing aid manufacturers, has gotten investor attention since 2017 with its lower-cost, "value-based" product that aims directly at about 80 percent of hearing consumers that significantly undercuts the average $2,500 price of a hearing aid sold through the legacy channels controlled by several major hearing companies.

The company also was bolstered last year by a favorable federal regulatory ruling that allowed it to proceed as a market disruptor through what it calls its Hearing Help Express business that was preceded by a decade of research.