Aviva Chief shows faith??

Aviva @ 315.78p, -7.41p (-2.29%)

Have to laugh at this type of thing (or cry), because its a hilarious byline (or not!), when you think about it.

Right, so given the Chairman and "interim" executive's attempts to maintain the dividend (for "long" suffering shareholders, I might add), there was an increasing risk that any newly appointed Chief Executive would take an axe to the dividend.

I still think such as Barclays took advantage of this fear and hyped it with suggestions of 15% or more as a cut, and like any experienced manager of a business knows once information and figures are out there (be it leaked rumour or fact), affected people are already getting their heads around the probability of that risk being enacted. 
Which has given Aviva's new CEO the red carpeted opportunity to take advantage of that.

And despite a significant improvement to the company capital consumed position (thanks to the Chairman), the new CEO has taken his first big decision to cut the dividend.

So soon into a new appointment I would have done the same but unfortunately the personal motivation to clear out the deadwood and give me a greater chance of personal success would form the basis for that.

So I have to chuckle even more when the new CEO has now forked out to buy shares that have taken a beating following a pre-meditated decision of his.
It used to be a flaw in old stock market based computer games, dump shares to drive the price down then buy them back at the bottom.

There was never a chance of him buying before that decision was there? That would have been with the benefit of pre-knowledge (and he would have lost money!), but what are the ethics of subsequently benefitting from that decision as existing shareholders suffer.

I have also written many times that when reading information from any source you also have to question what they have to gain from it.
I wish I could move share prices with a couple of sentences. 

So have Barclays and Mark Wilson created a short term buying opportunity?

Having to laugh even more when its ex dividend today so he's going to get 9p per share dividend as well.

Not a great start to his tenure, and a lot of living up to reputations to do now, so here's hoping he can do something special to correct this faux pas!

Related article links:
- http://www.independent.co.uk: Aviva chief shows faith with £480,000 share purchase
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk: Aviva investors await dividend news amid fear of cuts