Directors’ Dealings

AIM-quoted City of London, which specialises in emerging markets and natural resources, reported a 21 per cent increase in assets under management to $4.6 billion (£2.3 billion) at the end of November 2007, and they have held up well since then.

City of London also announced a more generous dividend policy – the board has reduced its dividend cover target from two to 1.5 times. The company is paying an interim dividend of 6p a share and has indicated that it will pay 12p a share for the final. At the current 332.5p, that produces a prospective yield of 5.4 per cent.

Five directors of Maxima acquired shares in the IT services company following the loss of a major client. Chief executive Kelvin Harrison and operations director Boris Huard bought 34,600 shares each, while chairman Mike Brooke acquired 10,000 shares.

Linda Andrews, the finance director, acquired 3,460 shares and non-executive Mark Morris bought 6,920.

These shares cost 144.5p each and together the directors have invested just short of £130,000. Herald Investment Trust subsequently increased its stake in Maxima from 4.46 per cent to 6.47 per cent, although this has not stopped the share price from falling to 134.5p – half the price it was a year ago.

Maxima claims that the client loss was a one-off, but it will knock more than £1 million off this year’s profits and the same next year. The client has gone with one supplier for all its IT services. Maxima also warned that uncertain financial markets are causing delays to buying decisions.

Sitting on a goldmine
Elsewhere, non-executive director Karl Watkin has generated more than £1 million from selling shares in China Goldmines – which joined AIM in February 2006 and is developing gold projects in China’s Hunan Province – in order to use the cash to pay off a tax liability. He started up the company and spent just over £23,000 on his initial stake – although he transferred some of those shares to fellow directors.

Watkin subsequently spent £500,000 on new shares in last September’s fundraising at 120p a share. The sale of just over 1 million shares at the beginning of February was at 104p a share.

Even though that is less than the September placing price, Watkin has still received more cash from this sale than he has invested in the company, and he still owns 1.02 million shares.

Domino’s directors sell slices
Domino’s Pizza’s profitability and earnings per share over the past three years have met all the targets of the group’s long-term incentive plan. Immediately after 2007 figures were released, chief executive Christopher Moore was allocated 368,502 shares and finance director Lee Ginsberg received 863,677 shares. They sold all of these shares at 210p, with Moore raising £774,000 and Ginsberg generating £1.8 million. Vice-chairman Colin Halpern also took the chance to offload two million shares at 206p each, leaving him with eight per cent of the business.

Despite worries about the rising prices of cheese and milk, Domino’s, which has flagged up its intention to move to the Main Market, increased pre-exceptional profits by one-third to £18.7 million last year, while like-for-like sales rose by an encouraging 11 per cent in the first six weeks of 2008, with some of the growth reflecting price rises instigated in November.

Lastly, Probability non-executive director John Scaife has sold 400,000 shares in the mobile phone gaming company to ICAP boss Michael Spencer’s family company IPGL. Spencer’s vehicle acquired an initial 15.8 per cent stake in a placing by Probability at 50p a share. One week later, including the shares bought from Scaife, this increased to 21.6 per cent.

Scaife still owns 8.17 per cent of Probability, whose shares are trading at 68.5p. The company, which has signed up an impressive list of partners including The Sun and Blue Square, moved into profit in the three months to December 2007.