Amid several instances of directors selling big chunks of shares in the last week there were also some notable purchases.
The wife of the chief executive of life insurance firm Phoenix (PHNX) snapped up nearly £400,000 worth of shares on 6 September. Suzanne Briggs, married to Andrew Briggs who took the helm in February 2020, bought 63,398 shares at 631p.
BUYING ON STRONG RESULTS
The purchase follows a strong set of first half results in August (11 Aug) when the group reported a doubling in cash generation to £872 million with the dividend lifted from 23.4p to 24.1p year-on-year.
Phoenix also confirmed it was on track to deliver at the top end of its target cash generation range of £1.5 billion to £1.6 billion for 2021 as a whole.
Elsewhere the new chair of chemicals firm Elementis (ELM) John O’Higgins swooped for a little over £100,000 worth of shares.
Results for the six months to June were strong, with sales up 17% from the pandemic-impacted comparable half in 2020 to $452 million, driven by improved industrial demand, customer restocking and currency tailwinds.
INTEGRAFIN FOUNDER IN BIG SALE TO FUND CHARITABLE VENTURE
The founder, former CEO and chair of Integrafin (IHP), which owns the Transact financial adviser technology platform, Michael Howard sold nearly £20 million.
The proceeds will be used to further fund a charitable foundation and the transaction was also completed for diversification purposes.
Digital transition firm firm Kainos (KNOS) reported that a person closely associated with chief financial officer Richard McCann, Kerry McCann, had sold £639,540 worth of shares.
Shares in the company are up more than 60% year-to-date as the company has seen demand for its services resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
On 7 September the CEO Alistair Cox, finance chief Paul Venables and other directors at recruiter Hays (HAS) sold some of the shares they were allocated under a deferred annual bonus scheme.
