Companies: AIP    ARL    BPP    ENN    IMD    MCB    NRG   

A couple of especially big buys from small-cap company directors have illuminated the scene lately. Indeed the week to 6 November saw £1 million more spent by board members than was earned from share sales (the following week produced a net deficit of only £520,000). It's early days yet, but it seems the burst of selling witnessed in recent times is begining to peter out.

Barham shells out on undervalued Arlington

Pall Mall-based and Aim-listed investment group Arlington has presented an interesting investment case for a long time, even being valued below its net cash reserves for a while. And interim results released on the last day of October once more showed that the company's shares have quite a few attractions. Pre-tax profits hit £1.3 million for the six months to September, up from £182,000 last year, on turnover raised 69 per cent to an impressive £9.2 million.

With net assets per share rising to 41.3p to boot, Arlington's Eton-educated chairman Nicholas Barham (formerly the son-in-law of Australian magnate Kerry Packer) took the bull by the horns. Shelling out a mighty £1.2 million for an extra 4.5 million shares at 26p, Barham has thus raised his stake to 59 per cent, a holding worth £13.2 million at the current price of 34p.

Arlington closed out £7 million of extra funding during the six months from April to September, taking part in a £2.65 million management buyout at Ster Century Cinemas. It also took the lead role in a £3 million placing and open offer at Enneurope, an Aim-listed vehicle spun out of fully-listed aggregates group Ennstone to invest in Poland and other areas of central Europe prior to the EU's eastward expansion.

Dunstone spends big at IMD

There was significant director buying at Independent Media Distribution, the electronic-based advertising and music video distributor, where non-executive director Charles Dunstone – the boss of Carphone Warehouse – laid out £520,000 of his substantial fortune on the company's shares.

IMD is still reasonably small, valued at £19.6 million on a share price of 58.5p. But it has been performing admirably, increasing profits before tax by 37 per cent to £610,000 in the six months to June, on sales raised 18 per cent to £1.55 million. This momentum has been carried on into the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, at ComProp, the Aim-listed Channel Islands property group, chairman Tom Scott took the release of interim results to September as the opportunity to up his holding, purchasing 150,000 shares at 102p apiece. Those results were not spectacular, however, showing pre-tax profits of £260,000. But there is plenty of potential at the company, which is currently redeveloping the large Admiral Park site at St Peter Port in Guernsey.

The picture at McBride, which supplies retailers with own brand household and personal care products, is rather more clear cut, with a recent AGM statement informing investors that trading is in line with expectations (expect around £31.6 million of pre-tax profits this year). Despite the strong performance from the company's shares already this year, chairman Lord Sheppard of Didgemere, his chief executive Mike Handley and financial director Miles Roberts all decided to buy more – 127,000 between them at prices ranging from 111p to 113.5p.

Satisfying the institutions

On the other side of the fence there have been a few big sales going through on the Full List, though these have been flagged up as being forced by pressure from institutional investors wanting stock. One example of a company where this has occurred recently is Air Partner, the air charter broker, where executive chairman Anthony Mack has been busy selling stock.

In fact, Mack has let go of a total of 495,000 shares over the past month or so at 340p and 360p, after an excellent run in 2003 in which they rose from a low of 205.5p. However, results for the year to July showed pre-tax profits reduced by 29 per cent to £2.9 million.

Institutional demand was apparently the reason for Northern Recruitment founder and chief executive Lorna Moran selling a line of shares. Like Mack, she earned more than £1 million, selling one million shares at 108p.

The company, which is expected to make £1.9 million of pre-tax profits in the year to June 2004, emphasised that Moran remains committed to the business, with this transaction being her first sale of shares since Northern floated in November 1997. She still owns more than half of the group.

Rather more unhappily, Michael Pennington, an executive at professional training specialist BPP Holdings, was forced into selling 98,374 shares to bring in £290,000 to fund his divorce settlement. The sale came soon after the company revealed that it expects 2003 pre-tax profits to come in at around the same £6 million level as last year.