Go on Take the Money and Run- Fiscal Cliff Edition

There has been a lot of discussion about companies getting out ahead of the impending increase in taxes and pulling forward potential future dividends via special dividends, largely financed via debt issuance. It should go without saying that layering in debt to fund dividends will add to incremental risk going forward. However, it also crossed my mind that some of these companies issuing special dividends are doing so out of fear of future operating shortfalls (be it due to slow expected growth, overall jobs cuts on increased costs from the new healthcare law, economic uncertainty, etc.) and are using the fiscal cliff to cover the truth. I do not have any evidence to that end, but thought that insider actions may be a window into management's thinking about future operations. With that in mind, I created a screen for companies that have announced special dividends over the last three months and at the same time have net insider sellers greater than or equal 2. The following is the list of names making that criteria.

This list could be a starting place for some interesting research.