Insiders buying Wi-LAN

Wi-LAN CEO Jim Skippen was one of three company insiders to buy its stock in the open market recently.

AUGUST 9TH UPDATE: Since we published this story there has been more insider buying at Wi-LAN. Yesterday, CFO Michael McEwan bought 5000 shares at $4.88 and CEO Jim Skippen added another 20,000 shares at $4.85.

On Thursday Wi-LAN (TSX:WIN) reported its Q2, 2012 results. Revenue came in at $20.8-million, which was slightly better than company guidance. Adjusted earnings were $10.1-million, or $.08 cents per share. On a GAAP basis, however, the Ottawa-based patent player lost $149,000 as it ramped up litigation expenses.

The market was lukewarm on Wi-LAN’s numbers, sending shares of the company down $.19 cents on Thursday to $4.91, and tacking on another five cent downtick on Friday, to close the stock at $4.86 for the week.

Wi-LAN insiders, meanwhile, are using the recent softness to load up on shares in the open market.

On August 3rd, Wi-LAN’s VP, Corporate Legal & Corporate Secretary Prashant Watchmaker bought 4600 shares at $4.86. The same day, the company’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Vladescu bought 5000 at $4.88. And CEO Jim Skippen bought 2000 shares at $4.85 and another 2000 at $4.84.

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This story is brought to you by The M Partners Tech 12 Investor Conference, which will be held on Tuesday September 11th, 2012 in Toronto. For information on attending click here.

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After the thrill ride that was 2009 through part of last year, the time since has been relatively quiet for shareholders of Wi-LAN. Since peaking at more than $9 last summer, shares of the company trickled off, tripping to under $5 this past May. But the company’s trajectory over a longer time frame has been decidedly up. Under the watch of CEO Jim Skippen, Wi-LAN’s revenue has climbed from just over $2 million in fiscal 2006 to the more than $100 million in fiscal 2011. The Ottawa-based company has quietly become one of the world’s top patent acquirers, on par or better than Apple, Google and Samsung in the third quarter of 2011. Wi-LAN was founded in 1992, commercializing a range of communications and consumer electronics products including routers, 3G handsets and WiMAX base stations. The Company now has more than three-thousand patents, and has already licensed their technologies to blue chip techs such as Cisco, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung.

Wi-LAN’s remains one of the few Canadian tech stocks to pay a dividend. On Thursday, the company announced it was hiking the payout by 16%, to $3.5 cents per share.

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