It’s been another busy week in terms of directors buying and selling shares in their respective companies, with the most notable transaction coming from clothing retailer N Brown (BWNG:AIM).
Non-executive director Joshua Alliance, son of fashion industry giant and longstanding N Brown chairman Lord David Alliance, has raised his stake in the firm from 4.61% to 6.21% after buying over 7.3 million shares at a price of 62p each in a deal worth around £4.5 million.
Lord Alliance, who stepped down as N Brown chairman in 2012, is the firm’s biggest shareholder with a 40% stake.
N Brown shares took an almighty hit in the market sell-off last March, tumbling from 69p down to 9.9p, which came after a big sell-off in the company’s shares at the start of 2020, having started the year at around 150p.
Its full year results to 27 February 2021 revealed a 13% drop in revenue to £728.8 million and a 72.3% plunge in statutory pre-tax profit to £9.9 million, but chief executive Steve Johnson said the firm is seeing ‘early signs of progress’ in its new financial year. N Brown’s brands include Jacamo, Simply Be, JD Williams, Ambrose Wilson and Home Essentials.
PAGEGROUP CEO SELLS £2.4 MILLION STAKE
Steve Ingham, chief executive of recruitment firm PageGroup (PAGE), has sold 400,000 shares in the business at a price of £6 each in a deal worth £2.4 million.
It comes after shares in the firm jumped to a post-pandemic high following a first quarter trading update last month, in which it predicted a strong rebound in full year operating profits.
The firm’s confidence in the full year outlook has improved so far in 2021 and it is now predicting a recovery in operating profits from £17 million last year to between £90 million and £100 million this year.
SHOE ZONE BOSSES BUY IN
Meanwhile two bosses of footwear retailer Shoe Zone (SHOE:AIM) have bought a further £1.3 million worth of shares in the company.
Chief executive Anthony Smith and chairman Charles Smith have snapped up another 1.6 million shares in the firm at a price of 80p each. It takes Charles Smith’s interest in Shoe Zone to a 23.87% holding, while Anthony Smith now owns 29.85%.
Shoe Zone shares still trade at less than half their pre-pandemic price, and the deals come after Shoe Zone revealed last week that revenue slumped by over a third during the six months to 3 April as the company continued to struggle with the effects of the pandemic. Turnover came in at £40.4 million over the period, down from £68.9 million last year, while losses were almost flat at £2.6 million.
For a full list of the week’s most significant trades, click here.
