- Burberry and Diageo facing tariffs
- Vodafone executives buy en masse
- AO and M&S directors lighten up
Encouragingly, it seems more directors of UK firms have been buying their companies’ stock than selling over the last few weeks, supporting the thesis that UK equities are undervalued on a relative basis, even if the outlook for their businesses is somewhat clouded by tariff concerns.
INSIDER BUYS
Joshua Schulman, the relatively new chief executive of fashion house Burberry (BRBY), was a buyer adding 29,744 shares at £10.69 for a total consideration of £317,991 on 27 June.
The Burberry board recently awarded Schulman a bonus of £1.2 million for 2024 with the proviso he spend half of it on the group’s shares.
Dayalan Nayager, a member of the executive committee at drinks maker Diageo (DGE), bought 13,983 shares at £18.35 for a total spend of around £256,000, while colleagues Alvaro Cardenas and Sally Grimes sold a total of 4,780 ADRs (American Depository Receipts) at $99.74 for tax purposes, netting around $477,000, all on 25 June.
Also on 25 June, a group of five executives at Vodafone (VOD), including chief executive Margherita della Valle and chief technology officer Scott Petty, bought 666,000 shares at 76.58p for a total cost of just over £500,000.
INSIDER SELLS
John Roberts, founder and chief executive of online electrical goods retailer AO World (AO.), was a seller of 2.5 million of the company’s shares at 96.6p on 3 July, netting a cool £2.41 million.
The same day, AO finance director Mark Higgins reduced his holding in the company by 147,090 shares, also sold at 96.6p, for a total consideration of £141,206.
Lastly, Marks & Spencer’s (MKS) operations director Sacha Berendji sold 300,000 shares at 363p on 20 June netting just under £1.09 million in the process.
