(Bloomberg) — A lawmaker is calling for an investigation of a $54.2 million, after-hours purchase of Oshkosh Corp. stock the day before the company won a blockbuster contract to build trucks for the U.S. Postal Service.
The transaction of 524,400 shares is bigger than Oshkosh trading volume for some entire days. The block itself amounted to almost 1% of the company’s publicly available shares and 74% of the firm’s 20-day average volume, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Oshkosh shares surged as much as 16% the next day, Feb. 23, and have risen further since. The holdings would be worth $59.6 million at Friday’s closing price of $113.65, or more than $5 million above the purchase price. The parties involved in the trade couldn’t be determined.
“It definitely stinks and needs to be looked into at the highest levels,” Representative Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat