Polar Capital (POLR:AIM) co-founder Brian Ashford-Russell sold almost £1 million worth of stock in the asset management company in recent days. A trio of trades saw the board director sell a total of 100,000 shares in the company at prices ranging from £8.92 to £9.17 per share, netting him £906,331.
Ashford-Russell is widely viewed as one of the UK’s pre-eminent technology fund managers and he founded Polar Capital about 20 years ago, listing the business on the junior AIM market in 2007. The company’s market value has soared to £888 million over the years while the stock has averaged an annual return of more than 19% over the past decade.
Ashford-Russell retains a hefty stake in Polar Capital, with a personal interest in nearly 3.2 million shares, or 3.19% of the company.
BIOTECH BUYING
Cathal Friel continues to back the Open Orphan (ORPH:AIM) vaccines business he helped to found and which listed on AIM in 2019. The 56-year old Ulsterman is the executive chairman of Open Orphan and this week he purchased 1,132,075 shares in the business at 26.5p per share.
The £300,000 trade takes the serial entrepreneur’s stake in Open Orphan to 47,087,086, or just over 7% of the company.
Friel was joined in buying stock by non-executive director Professor Brendan Buckley, who also purchased a 188,679 share slug in the company at the same 26.5p share price, taking his personal stake to 8,034,539, or 1.2% of the company.
A full rundown of the latest director dealings can be found here, with analysis here.
