James Hagedorn, Chairman and CEO of Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG), has filed 103 Form 4 transactions with the SEC, all in the single company. The pattern is overwhelmingly one-way: there are no open-market purchases (code "P") on record, and no sales of any kind in the recent window. Instead, the activity is dominated by compensation-related grants (code "A"), option exercises (code "M"), and automatic share withholdings to cover taxes (code "F"). The total value of acquired shares, nearly all from grants and exercises, stands at roughly $3.87 million, while the total value of sales is about $10.2 million — though that figure is driven by a single large "F" transaction in early February 2026, when shares worth $1.06 million were withheld to satisfy tax obligations.
The most recent filings, from late 2025 through mid-2026, show no open-market buying or selling at all. Instead, the recurring entries are monthly "A" grants — typically around $83,000 to $195,000 — and small "J" transactions of roughly $2,000, which are non-cash adjustments related to dividend equivalents or similar corporate actions. The absence of "P" or "S" codes in the recent period means Hagedorn has not been actively adding to or trimming his stake on the open market. His holdings are being built almost entirely through compensation awards, while the only cash outflows are the automatic tax-withholding sales, which are not discretionary.
The data suggests a CEO whose equity position is growing through compensation rather than personal investment. The lack of open-market purchases — the only code the SEC treats as a true conviction buy — and the lack of open-market sales means the insider is not signaling a directional view through his own wallet. The $1.06 million tax withholding in February 2026 is the largest single cash event in the recent period, but it is a mechanical consequence of a large grant vesting, not a market decision. Overall, the filing history paints a picture of a long-tenured executive accumulating shares through pay packages, with no recent indication of either bullish accumulation or bearish distribution.
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