Insiders tend to be value investors. If they’re buying shares in their own company, it’s usually because they think the market is undervaluing the company.

In this report, we are going to highlight some recent insider buying at OneWater Marine Inc (ONEW:US). OneWater Marine owns and operates marine retail dealerships throughout North America. The company targets the premium boat market, selling new and pre-owned boats. It is listed on the Nasdaq and currently has a market capitalization of approximately $440.72 million.

Insider Buying at OneWater Marine

2iQ data shows that between February 6 and 7, OneWater Marine’s Chairman Mitchell Legler purchased 7,000 ONEW shares at an average price of $29.10 per share. This trading activity cost the insider approximately $204,000 and increased his holding to 66,656 shares.

Buying From Top-level Insiders

What’s interesting here is that Mr. Legler isn’t the only top-level insider at OneWater Marine to buy company stock recently. Additionally, the company's CEO, Austin Singleton and Director, Steven Roy also purchased OneWater's shares on Feb 7. Combined, the two insiders spent $130,000 on 4,500 shares. Back we noted that Founder and CEO Austin Singleton had purchased 10,381 shares at an average price of $31.12 per share in December.

Another thing that stands out here is that this trading activity represents Chairman Legler’s first stock purchase since March 2020. In other words, he doesn’t buy company stock very often.

Value Play

This trading activity from Mr. Legler appears to be a value play.

Currently, analysts expect OneWater Marine to generate earnings per share of $7.16 for the year ending September 30, 2023. This means that currently, the stock has a forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 4.2. That’s a very low valuation.

It’s worth noting that OneWater Marine did recently lower its full-year outlook due to macro uncertainty. However, it said that signs are pointing to a “strong” selling season, with positive boat show activity and “healthy” demand levels.

And the management was confident that, going forward, it can generate value for shareholders.

“Over the past two years, OneWater has successfully executed on our growth and diversification strategy, adding 38 dealership locations and building out our parts and service platform. As the industry returns to historical seasonal cycles, we believe our flexible and diversified operating model positions us to continue to outperform the market and return value to our shareholders,” said CEO Austin Singleton in the company’s Q1 results.

In light of the low valuation here, we see the legal insider trade as a bullish signal.

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