Directors Dealings by Jenny Lowe

The biggest deal among AIM stocks in the past month came from the directors at pensions consultant Mattioli Woods. A favourite of many City brokers, the shares have bounced from September’s six-month low of 210p to 240p, allowing chief executive Ian Mattioli and executive chairman Bob Woods to cash in. These main players each sold £1.2 million of shares at 238p.

It is two years since the pair made similar sales and both retain significant stakes. They claim the sales were to expand the company’s free float in response to market demand, a fact proved by institutional investors BlackRock, Rensburg Sheppards and Merrill Lynch snapping up the extra shares.

It’s a similar story at oil and gas producer Matra Petroleum, with the shares having recovered tenfold from last winter’s 0.3p low as the company started drilling

the first appraisal well on the Arkhangelovskoe Licence in Orenburg, Russia. Non-executive director Craig Burton sold three million shares in a transaction worth £126,000.

Over at Australian concern CAP-XX, which makes energy storage devices for mobile phones, digital cameras and laptop computers, the shares have been treading water at around 15p for the last year or so, before kicking up on strong recent results to their present 27.75p and allowing non-executive director John Murray, acting for the company’s principal backers, Technology Venture Partners, to sell £500,000 worth at 24p each. In the year to June, CAP-XX’s revenues rose 53 per cent to A$2.7 million and losses shrunk by almost two-thirds to A$3.1 million.

Moni talks
But it hasn’t all been about selling this month. Having had a good run since the summer, directors at Monitise have been putting their money where their mouth is.

The group, which provides text message services for banks and allows people to top up their mobile phones, is in buoyant mood of late, having just gained its one millionth customer and signed Visa up to a five-year deal worth at least $13 million. Although still loss making, the company is confident that its recent surge in sales is set to continue, with independent broker Investec forecasting losses to reduce by 23 per cent this year and 42 per cent next before break-even in 2011.

The shares have been on the rise this year, up from 2.75p to the present 13p, and non-executive directors David Hey and Peter Radcliff spent £13,700 and £9,687 respectively at 14p a share to show their belief in the venture.

Elsewhere in the mobile telecommunications sector, a non-executive director of internet telephone service group Vyke Communications, Jørgen Peter Rasmussen, tried to get his confidence across to the market by adding to his stake in the company.

After a warning on profits at the time of September’s half-year results sent its shares even faster on their long descent from 2007’s £2 high, Vyke quickly soothed investor concerns about its lack of funds with news of a new £10 million equity line of credit. This was soon followed by an agreement to supply its products in South America, which helped the shares up from their 8.38p low to around 15p. Rasmussen has forked out almost £35,000 in three transactions at prices ranging from 11.5p to 15p over the past month to do his bit.

Meanwhile, IT recruiter InterQuest’s non-executive director Paul Few increased his stake with a £9,600 purchase just after the group announced a 55 per cent plunge in half-year pre-tax profits to £913,000. The board has recently ‘taken speedy and decisive action’ to ensure the business is ‘now in the best shape that it can be to face whatever market conditions prevail in the short and medium term’. With the shares up from 30.5p to 52.5p today, InterQuest seems to be one of the best-fancied smaller players in the sector.