Directors' Dealings by Ben Jaglom

May saw another month of director buying and selling, with companies reporting director selling including sugar giant Tate & Lyle.

There was a bout of board buying at LXB Retail Properties, the AIM-quoted property group that specialises in the purchase of out-of-town retail parks.

Chairman Phil Wrigley, also chairman of wine specialist Majestic Wines and of furnishings retailer Habitat, acquired 444,748 shares at a price of 114p a share in a placing. Announced in May, the placing itself raised £110 million for LXB from a number of institutional investors and the recent buying followed that earlier fundraising exercise.

Joining him on the LXB board’s purchasing round were non-executive director Steve Webb, who works as investor relations director at Tesco, and another NED, Daniel Kitchen. The two purchased 111,938 and 467,927 shares respectively, with the three directors spending a total of £349,071 on the purchases.

Stationery move
Over at retailer WH Smith, non-executive director Henry Staunton’s wife Karen nabbed 10,000 shares at a price of £4.72 a share, in a purchase worth a total of £47,200. Henry Staunton is a NED at a number of other companies including Legal & General, Merchants Trust and Capital & Counties Properties.

Prior to joining WH Smith, he worked as the finance director at Granada and ITV. WH Smith has been rather quiet on the newsflow front of late. In April, the group released a trading update in which it reported that over the six months to February, like-for-like sales fell four per cent although pre-tax profits climbed £2 million to £64 million. It recently announced a deal with US doughnut chain Krispy Kreme that will see the American import selling its treats at ten of WH Smith’s stores in a trial.

Also a fan of sugary delights is Peter Gershon, chairman of sugar trading behemoth Tate & Lyle. Gershon, who is as well known in political circles for his work as a member of the government’s ‘efficiency board’ and his prior investigation through the ‘Gershon review’ of efficiency in the UK public sector, swooped to buy 6,125 shares at a price of 652p a share, in a deal worth a total of £39,935. This May the British giant unveiled a strong set of full-year results, reporting a 32 per cent rise in adjusted pre-tax profits to £263 million on turnover up seven per cent to £2.72 billion.

At specialist hire business Andrew Sykes, executive director Emmanuel Sebag thought it was the right time to offload some shares. Sebag sold 13,216 shares in two separate sell-offs. A total of 6,376 shares were sold at 208.75, while 6,840 were sold at 205.5p, netting Sebag a total of £27,366. Following the sale, the director no longer has a stake in the company.

Capital gain
There was also a sell-off at Capital Shopping Centres Group. Kay Chaldecott, a director in the company who has worked at the group since 1984, announced that, together with her husband, Edward Chaldecott, they had sold a total of 55,000 shares in the company in a transaction worth £212,399.

The group, which develops shopping centres in the UK, recently unveiled a trading update concerning the Trafford Centre in Manchester, a recent acquisition for the company, in which it remarked that the centre has ‘performed strongly’ of late.

Over at Scottish media group STV Group, owner of Scottish Television, Grampian Television and a number of radio and internet businesses, non-executive director Matthew Peacock sold 200,000 shares in the group, worth a total of £272,500. A governor at the Glasgow School of Art, Peacock’s sale follows April’s announcement by STV that it would be paying British TV giant ITV £18 million following a number of legal disputes with the channel behind shows such as Britain’s Got Talent.