Air Products’ top boss is expanding the bet he has made on his own turnaround skills.
CEO Seifi Ghasemi upped his stake in the Trexlertown company last week, paying $3.2 million on the open market for 23,000 shares, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Generally, when an executive goes out of his way to invest in his own company — acquiring shares in addition to those awarded as compensation — it suggests he is confident the value of the stock will continue to rise.
Air Products’ stock has already come a long way since May 2013, when activist investor William Ackman began pumping money into the company. Pre-Ackman, the company’s shares were trading under $90. On Tuesday, they opened at $145 — a gain of about 61 percent in a year and a half.
Ghasemi was one of three directors appointed to the Air Products board in September 2013 to appease Ackman.
He made his first open-market purchase of Air Products stock the following month, paying $1.6 million for 15,000 shares. Then, in July, he bought another 25,000 shares, paying $3.3 million
All told, he now has 100,026 shares of Air Products stock worth $14.5 million.
In September, Ghasemi announced a major restructuring of Air Products. He promised to decentralize the company by eliminating layers of management.
Some analysts had predicted he would unload Air Products’ Materials Technologies division, but instead he promised to retain the division so long as it improved its profitability.
“What counts in the long term is the increased share value of our stock … not our size,” he said then. “I am excited by the significant opportunities in front of us.”
Air Products, the world’s largest hydrogen producer, is one of the Lehigh Valley’s two Fortune 500 companies and the region’s No. 3 employer, with 3,400 workers in the area. Worldwide, it has 20,000 employees.
Before taking the lead at Air Products, Ghasemi served as CEO for New Jersey chemicals company Rockwood Holdings, where he remains on the board of directors.
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