Director’s Sale: A KLIC Dividend Check-In

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So, Mui Sung Yeo, a director over at Kulicke and Soffa – KLIC, if you’re keeping score – recently unloaded a chunk of her stock. Nineteen thousand, one hundred and forty-three shares, to be precise. It amounted to about $1.4 million. Now, I’m not one to pry into people’s financial affairs, but when a director starts cashing out, it does make a fellow dividend hunter twitch a little. It’s like noticing the captain has quietly started gathering life rafts. Not necessarily a disaster, just… a heightened awareness of the potential for choppy waters.

The paperwork – SEC Form 4, naturally – revealed the sale, and the usual table of numbers followed. She still holds 78,522 shares, which, according to my calculations (and a calculator app I downloaded specifically for this purpose), is worth around $5.6 million. It’s a comfortable sum, even after the sale. I sometimes wonder what people do with that kind of money. Probably something sensible. Or maybe a lifetime supply of miniature porcelain thimbles. You never know.

This was her first sale since April of 2023, which is interesting. A lot of filings before that were just administrative stuff. It’s like she was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, then suddenly decided she preferred a lifeboat. The timing is also curious. The stock had hit a 52-week high a couple of days earlier. A sensible move, perhaps, to lock in some gains? Or a premonition? I’ve learned not to trust premonitions. They usually involve forgetting where I parked the car.

KLIC itself is in the semiconductor assembly business. They make the equipment that puts all the tiny bits and pieces together. It’s a niche market, but a vital one. They’ve been doing reasonably well, revenue around $687 million, but the net income is… well, let’s just say it’s not exactly swimming in cash. A loss of $64.63 million. Still, the dividend yield is a respectable 1.15%. That’s what I’m interested in, naturally. A little trickle of income to offset the general anxieties of modern life.

Apparently, the company’s been benefiting from the AI boom. More demand for their equipment, increased revenue, and a stock price that’s been soaring. The first quarter revenue totaled $199.6 million, up from $166.1 million the previous year. A nice bump. But with that kind of growth comes a higher price-to-earnings ratio. Over 400, in fact. That’s… ambitious. It reminds me of the time I tried to build a birdhouse out of toothpicks. It looked good in theory, but it lacked a certain structural integrity.

So, what does this all mean for investors? I wouldn’t panic. Ms. Yeo still has a significant stake in the company. She’s not abandoning ship entirely. She’s just… trimming the sails, perhaps. I suspect she was simply taking some profits off the table. A perfectly rational move. However, I’d be cautious about buying at these levels. The stock is a bit frothy, and a correction is always possible. I’ll be watching from the sidelines, waiting for a more attractive entry point. Like a patient heron, waiting for a particularly plump fish to swim by. It requires patience, but the reward can be quite satisfying.

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2026-02-25 09:02