Directors Dealings by Jenny Lowe

Something of a buying spree has occurred at surgical devices maker Surgical Innovations, which, during September’s frenetic reporting season, announced profits upped by 95 per cent to £215,000, on 14 per cent growth at the top line to £1.99 million, for the first half-year.

Non-executive chairman Doug Liversidge attributed the dramatic improvement in the AIM-quoted minnow’s financial health to strong sales of both own-branded and OEM products, as well as its decision to bring manufacturing in-house, which cut costs and laid the platform for sales and profits growth.

A cabal of five directors, including Liversidge, finance director Graham Bowland and three non-executives expressed their optimism about the future, forking out £18,000 apiece for shares at a price of 1.64p, with Professor Michael McMahon adding a further £10,000-worth at 1.37p and 1.4p.

Confident signals from O’Connor
Sean O’Connor, chairman at energy support services business Cape, signalled his confidence in the AIM group’s growth prospects by snapping up a meaty £58,000 tranche at 231.43p.

O’Connor’s move follows that of CEO Martin May, who upped his stake in the business at the end of October with a £25,000 purchase at 250p. No-nonsense entrepreneur May dipped his toe into the market shortly after Cape announced a trio of contract renewals in the UK, worth more than £25 million combined.

Taylor stays focused
Over at financial services-focused software and computer services firm Focus Solutions, chairman Alastair Taylor demonstrated his confidence in growth prospects by shelling out £13,300 to buy shares at 38p.

Taylor now speaks for 1.01 per cent of AIM-traded Focus, which recently won a contract worth an estimated £2 million over five years with an unnamed major UK adviser network. The deal involves the group’s ‘focus:360°’ wealth management and mortgage sales software, which will be used by the client to support its investment, pensions, protection and mortgage business.

Selling out of Fiske
However, not all directors were buyers last month. In the financials space, executive director James Philip Quibell Harrison sold almost half his holding in stock broker Fiske, reducing it to 0.08 per cent, through the sale of 8,000 shares at 75p, netting him £6,000.

Fiske – valued at £6.2 million at its recent 74p market price – has found the going tough amid the recent market maelstrom and results for the year to last May were decidedly lacklustre. The City-based business swung from pre-tax profits of £433,000 to losses of £139,000, on lower revenue of £2.8 million (£3.1 million).

City sellers
And over at City of London Investment Group, where profits fell by 50 per cent to £5.4 million last year, non-executive director David Cardale opted to cash in £147,500 worth of shares at 295p.

The emerging markets-focused asset manager, whose shares have subsequently moved higher to 302.5p, valuing the company on AIM at just shy of £80 million, recently announced that funds under management rose to $4.7 billion in the six months to October, an increase of £1.2 billion, reflecting the funding of around $350 million of $500 million of new mandates.

However, company founder and largest shareholder Barry Olliff has disclosed that he is also intending to sell shares – half a million at a time – should the share price reach or rise above 310p, with similar sized disposals planned at prices of 350p and 400p.