Some of the most notable director deals over the past week have come from the world of finance.
Senior bosses at fund management group Ninety One (N91) have shown their faith in the business after buying up around £5 million worth of shares. The asset manager listed in London and Johannesburg in March after demerging from finance giant Investec.
NINETY ONE TOP BRASS BUYS IN
The asset manager’s senior bosses, including chief executive Hendrik du Toit, finance director Kim McFarland, bought the shares at a price of around 209p each through their ‘Forty Two Point Two’ investment vehicle, used by the company’s management to build up their stake in the business.
Ninety One’s shares have steadily risen since it listed in March, hovering around 30% higher from the closing price of 151.2p on their first day of trading on 16 March.
The company said at the time of its full year results to 31 March 2020 published in May that it plans to use the market and economic turmoil from the coronavirus pandemic to ‘build a better firm’ and develop ‘better ways of investing’.
Its first quarter update for the three months to 30 June showed the company’s assets under management had risen from £103.4 billion to £118 billion.
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE EXEC SELLS AGAIN
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has been a stock market darling for a number of years and even a tumble at the height of the market selloff in March hasn’t been enough to derail the general upward trajectory of its share price.
Seemingly the market has ignored all the regulatory hurdles involved in its attempt to buy Refinitiv and the possible forced sale of its Milan bourse Borsa Italiana, with the LSE’s shares priced for perfection on a 2021 price to earnings ratio of 36 times.
So perhaps the decision by its head of information services, Waqas Samad, to sell 8,000 shares at £88.33 each could be a shrewd move. It comes after Samad sold 20,800 shares in March, at a price of £79 each at the time, bucking the trend of directors who were taking advantage of market selloff to seemingly snap up shares in their own firms at bargain prices.
For a full list of the week’s most significant trades, click here.
