Chairman Jannard Remains Bullish on Oakley’s Future

Where would Oakley Inc.’s stock be trading if founder and chairman Jim Jannard hadn’t gobbled up 3 million shares over the last year?

“When you have someone who is an aggressive buyer, that definitely doesn’t hurt the stock price,” said Marcia Aaron, who follows the Foothill Ranch sunglasses maker for BT Alex. Brown.

Jannard recently wrapped up his third round of buying--snapping up about 1 million Oakley shares each time--and has announced that he plans to buy another million because he thinks the company’s stock is undervalued. Jannard, who rarely grants interviews, hasn’t said at what price he thinks Oakley shares should be trading. The bulk of his recent buying came at prices under $10 a share.

“Once he thinks people understand our story, that’s probably when he’ll stop buying,” said company spokeswoman Renee Law. “I don’t know where his top price is.”

Jannard isn’t the only one who thinks Oakley shares are a good investment. Last week, Crabbe Huson Group, a Portland, Ore., investment and mutual fund company, disclosed that it has acquired 6.03 million shares, or an 8.5% stake, on behalf of 60 of its clients.

Here’s a look at Jannard’s most recent trading activity.

* In 46 trading days between Oct. 27 and Dec. 22, Jannard was in the market 14 of those days, or about once every three days.

* He paid as little as $8.75 a share and as much as $10.06, altogether buying 900,000 shares for a total of $9.08 million. That raised his stake in Oakley to 53.3%, which is worth $374 million as of Monday’s close.

* Jannard’s purchases on average accounted for 26.4% of daily trading volume when he was in the market, ranging from a low of 2.1% on Oct. 28 to a high of 71.5% on Dec. 11.

After harvesting $352 million (before taxes) in two stock offerings, will Jannard simply decide to take Oakley private again by buying back all of its shares? “A lot of people have asked him that question,” Law said. “Jim is a person who doesn’t live in the past, and now that we’re a public company, this is what we’re going to be.”

It would be an expensive proposition even for Jannard, as Oakley has a market value of $702 million.

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Russ Stanton covers retail businesses and restaurants for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-5609 and at russ.stanton@latimes.com