Amid all the wild swings in the stock market over the past week, it has emerged that a number of bosses at big firms used the opportunity to either buy or sell shares.

The biggest deal to note comes from FTSE 100 trainers-to-tracksuits retailer JD Sports (JD.) and its executive chairman Peter Cowgill, who sold £19 million worth of shares at a price of 745.6p each.

JD Sports said Cowgill offloaded the stake for ‘personal financial and tax planning purposes’.

Cowgill sold the shares on Friday. When the market opened again on Monday, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement of a second national lockdown, shares in JD Sports plummeted to under the 700p mark with the lockdown forcing them firm to close its stores.

It’s the second significant sale Cowgill has made this year, after selling £13.3 million worth of shares in June at a price of around 671.7p each.

GLAXOSMITHKLINE SCIENCE CHIEF BUYS $5M STAKE

Despite the rally in healthcare stocks this year, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has lagged the wider market with its shares still significantly lower year-to-date.

This has seemingly presented a buying opportunity for some of its directors, with chief scientific officer Hal Baron spending just over $5 million on the firm’s American Depository Shares (ADS) at a price of $33.96 each. Each ADS is worth two ordinary shares.

Meanwhile chairman Jonathan Symonds last week bought 15,000 shares at a price of £13.15 each, for a total of £197,000.

HSBC DIRECTORS BUY INTO RALLY

Meanwhile HSBC (HSBA) directors have been buying in to the rally in the bank’s share price, which is now comfortably higher than the multi-decade low seen in September as sentiment towards the business improves.

Its third quarter results were better than expected with higher than forecast earnings, as lower provisions for bad loans, lower costs and higher capital levels all pleased the market.

Against this backdrop investors may also be encouraged to see two directors buying in, with chief financial officer Ewen Stevenson buying 37,000 shares at £3.21 each for a total of around £118,700.

While non-executive Jamie Forese, formerly a top executive at US giant Citigroup, snapped up 115,000 ADSs at a price of around $20.97 each for a total of around $482,000. Each HSBC ADS is worth five ordinary shares.

OTHER NOTABLE DEALS

New Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) chief executive Stephen Bird has bought 500,000 shares in the FTSE 100 investment company at a price of 217.59p each, in a transaction worth just over £1 million.

Photo-Me International (PHTM) chief executive Serge Crasnianski has once again been buying up a load of shares, purchasing five million shares on Friday at 51p each in a deal worth £2.6 million. He now has 105.1 million shares, a 27.8% stake, having bought over 20 million shares this year.

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Issue Date: 05 Nov 2020