Directors’ Dealings by Ben Jaglom

There was a round of buying at the appropriately named Tasty, the food group behind the Dim T brand of dim sum restaurants and the recently launched Wildwood brand of pizza and pasta outlets. Co-founder and director Samuel Kaye, one half of the fraternal duo that created and sold the Ask pizzeria chain, acquired 300,000 shares at a price of 31p a share in a purchase worth £93,000.

Tasty, which has previously been best known for its dim sum restaurants, recently produced a better than expected set of results, reporting maiden profits of £240,000 (2010: loss of £2.1 million) on turnover up 15 per cent to £10.56 million. While Dim T has been going for four years in locations such as Hampstead and Highgate in North London, it’s the Wildwood brand that seems to have gained the most traction of late.

Rayne goes for a million
Another buy in the restaurant sector was by Richard Rayne, a non-executive director at Richoux Group, a chain that operates ‘in prestigious areas of Central London’, according to the company. Rayne, together with his partner Benita Refson, purchased a total of 1.1 million shares at a price of 15.3p a share in a deal worth a total of £170,000. Rayne is a director of LMS Capital, the fund that holds a 26.9 per cent stake in the business. Like Tasty, Richoux also has a foothold in North London, with an outlet in St John’s Wood.

There was a bout of buying at Zambia-focused mineral processing company Berkeley Mineral Resources. Chairman Masoud Alikhani purchased a total of 400,000 shares over two days. During that time fellow director Mark Wainwright also dipped into the market, buying a total of 150,000 shares over the period. Berkeley recently announced interim results for the six months to December in which losses widened from £232,468 to £863,632.

CLS chairman’s investment
Europe-focused property group CLS Holdings, the company that owns buildings in the UK at locations including the Westminster Tower in Central London and Buspace Holdings in Notting Hill, West London, saw chairman Sten Morstedt purchase 22,948 shares at a price of 648p in a deal that cost a total of £148,703. The company owns a number of properties across Sweden, Germany and the UK and recently announced that it had raised £29.4 million through a bond issue in Sweden.

There was activity at floor coverings distributor Headlam Group. The fully listed company, which supplies laminate flooring, carpets and other types of flooring throughout Holland, France and Switzerland, saw finance director Stephen Wilson purchase 50,000 shares at a price of 300p for a total value of £150,000.

Following the purchase, Wilson holds a 0.54 per cent stake in the business. The floorings specialist recently declared a strong set of full-year results for the year to December 2010 in which pre-tax profits rose 13.3 per cent to £25 million on turnover roughly flat at £535.7 million (2009: £533.8 million).

As well as the keen director buys, there were also the usual bouts of selling. Legal and accounting IT specialist Tikit Group saw chief executive David Lumsden reduce his holding in the company.

Lumsden sold a total of 30,000 shares at a price of 259.5p for a total value of £77,850. This March, Tikit reported a modest increase in pre-tax profits to £2.9 million (2009: £2.5 million) on revenue up 7 per cent to £26.9 million in results for the year to December.