Companies: CRG    ETR    KLR    NES    WIL   

Cash is king in a bear market, for individuals as much as for companies. Hence, it can be of little surprise to see company directors taking advantage of the market's mini-revival after the second Gulf War to turn paper wealth into the real thing.

According to Charles Stanley researcher Iain Daly, board buys generally outnumber sells by around 40-50 per week. However, the sells tend to be of much greater volume than the purchases. The month of April was no exception in this respect.

Happy Easter for Enterprise execs

Top of the list for sales was Aim-listed support services star Enterprise, where no less than five out of six executive directors cashed in a large portion of their holdings for cash before Easter. In all, 5.2 million shares were shed — seven per cent of the shares currently in issue, with chairman Sean McLaughlin and chief executive Sean Keogh selling 2.5 million and 2.1 million respectively, leaving each of them with 9.5 per cent of the company.

These two, especially, must have had good Easters, as their actions earned them a total of more than £10 million. Understandably, house broker KBC Peel Hunt sought assurances that all five sellers will not dispose of any more shares until results for the year 2004 have been announced. Analysts expect 2003 figures to show upwards of £21 million in pre-tax profits, compared to £17.8 million last time.

But McLaughlin, Keogh et al have not been alone in wanting to cash in some of their chips. Peter Gibson, the executive chairman of orthopaedic devices group Corin, sold more than half of his shares soon after that company's own, impressive, finals. £2 million was his return.

IT solutions group NetStore looks like one of the better-placed companies in its sector, holding nearly £16 million of cash in the bank at the end of December, having halved losses to £1.9 million over the previous six months on turnover boosted from £1.7 million to £6.2 million. But that hasn't deterred non-executive Jeff Maynard from selling 1.5 million shares at 18.5p. Likewise, computer games magazine concern Future Network's chief executive Greg Ingham sold 318,000 shares at 47p following final results that were ahead of forecasts. He did this via a transfer to his wife, and then sale.

Brady puts money where mouth was

After being recommended in the Company Watch section of Growth Company Investor in March, shares in publishing group Wilmington have risen from 61.5p to 76p, spurred along by some substantial buying by company chief executive Charles Brady.

Brady had previously said that he wouldn't part with any two parts at the business for the group market capitalisation of the time, so it is encouraging that he has put his money where his mouth was. Especially given the sums invested – £600,000, all spent between April 1st and 4th at prices ranging from 61.75p to 64p and in the process raising his personal stake over four per cent.

Wilmington has a wide range of revenue streams, many of which have remained quite robust over the past few years, with just magazine advertising suffering hard from the downturn and depressing profits along the way. But brokers look kindly upon the group, with Numis amongst those, predicting £8.5 million of pre-tax profits before goodwill this year, following a first half profit of £3.4 million.

Additional bulk-buying has been taking place at ground engineering and structural renovation specialist Keller, following March's impressive annual results. These figures showed better-than-expected pre-tax profits of £27.3 million (£22.4 million) on turnover boosted past the half million pound mark for the first time, leading house broker Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein to set a price target of 350p for the shares.

The buying came from an interesting source, in the form of non-executive director Pedro Lopez Jiminez, the chairman owner of a Spanish company called Terratest with which Keller formed a joint venture last November. Already owning 4.8 per cent of the British company following this deal, Jiminez was appointed as a non-executive director on 7th March and has been increasing his stake ever since. In April he added 160,000 shares to his portfolio at a cost of £394,000, bringing his stake to 5.1 per cent.

Jiminez was actually Spanish Secretary of State for Public Works and Urban Development in the late 1970s, in the immediate years following the death of General Franco and the country's adoption of democracy.