SoFi CEO Noto makes ‘opportunistic’ million-dollar stock purchase as SVB crisis fuels selloff

Shares of SoFi, the neobanking company best known for its lending products, closed Thursday at $6.09. They hit an intraday low of $5.21 in Friday’s session before finishing the trading day at $5.58, down 8.4%.

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The purchase showed “an opportunistic tack” on the part of Noto, as he was “buying into weakness as SOFI shares fell alongside other financials due to the problems at SVB,” according to VerityData research director Ben Silverman, who tracks insider purchasing.

“We think he’s trying to signal to investors that contagion impacting names like SoFi is creating a buying opportunity,” added Silverman.

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SoFi disclosed in a separate filing Friday afternoon that it “does not hold assets with Silicon Valley Bank.” The company has a lending facility of about $40 million that’s “provided through Silicon Valley Bank” but is “unaffected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s receivership of Silicon Valley Bank,” according to that filing.

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Noto was an “aggressive” buyer of SoFi’s stock back in December, Silverman said, scooping up $7.4 million in shares at prices below $4.60 a share across several transactions. “That was very compelling conviction, and he timed his buying perfectly,” Silverman noted.

SoFi’s stock reached a 2023 closing high of $7.72 on Feb. 2.

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Silverman observed that Noto was “a frequent but not aggressive buyer from August 2021 to June 2022, buying in a range from around $14.00 all the way down to around $5.00.”