Directors’ Dealings by Ben Jaglom

Conor Foley, CEO of spread betting concern Worldspreads has topped up his stake in the AIM-quoted company. The University College Dublin-educated boss snapped up a total of 100,000 shares in a bout of buying over four days.

The end of January saw Worldspreads issue a trading update in which it warned that the ‘accelerated rate of revenue growth for the group in the second half’ for the year ending March 2011 that it was expecting when it announced the interim results ‘have not materialised’ and that as a result rather than posting a profit, it was expecting to report a ‘small loss’ over the period.

Israeli water filtration company Amiad Filtration Systems saw directors up holdings. Chairman Tal Yeshua, a veteran of a number of Israeli enterprises such as Kibbutz Ratanim and Arad Technologies acquired 5,000 shares while non-executive director Simon Olswang, a former director of the British Library, purchased the same amount, bringing the total amount bought by the Amiad board to 10,000 shares, a value of £21,850.

The AIM-quoted venture recently announced it would be acquiring the remaining 34 per cent of its French subsidiary, Amiad France. Following a number of acquisitions made over the years Amiad now has a presence in territories including India, Turkey, Chile and China.

Meanwhile, over at specialist publisher Future, chairman Roger Parry snagged 30,000 shares, while non-executive director Manjit Wolstenholme, who joined the board this February swooped in, taking 34,000 shares, while fellow non-executive director Seb Bishop, the CEO of AIDS charity RED International, founded by U2 vocalist Bono took 17,000 shares. Together the director buying came to a total value of £23,490.

The company behind titles such as video games industry title Edge magazine, Future declared in a recent trading update that trading for the period to the year-end was ‘in line with the board’s expectations.’

Moreover, taking advantage of the recent strong set of results at mobile banking and payments provider Monitise, which reported a tripling of sales to £5.3 million (2009: £1.73 million) was CEO Alastair Lukies, who sold one million shares at 24.25p. Joining him was chief commercial officer Luke Cameron, who sold 250,000 shares, as did his wife, with all three selling at a price of 24.25p, for a total value of £363,750.

There was also a round of selling at Iraq-focused oil explorer Gulf Keystone Petroleum. Finance director Ewen Ainsworth together with his wife Angela sold 240,000 shares at £1.8487 a share, while chief operating officer John Gerstenlauer offloaded 300,000 at the same price, netting the board a total of £998,508.

Shares in the company rose this month amidst news from the Shaikan-3 Shallow Appraisal Well in Kurdistan.

Over at patent and trade mark attorney Murgitroyd non-executive director Christopher Greig, a former chairman of Scottish brewer Belhaven and PPL Therapeutics, the company behind the famous Dolly the sheep, sold his remaining shares in the company as part of his ‘personal tax planning’. Greig sold 10,000 shares at £3.30 each for a total value of £33,000, with Greig currently no longer holding any shares in the outfit.

Murgitroyd unveiled a strong set of results for the year to November, posting profits of £1.79 million (2009: £1.68 million) on turnover up 12% to £16 million, driven by organic growth of its niche business.