Burford shares too cheap to ignore

Burford Capital makes a living by financing corporate litigation. It is very choosy about which companies it offers financing to, and the resulting benefits are clear to see, with pre-tax profits last year soaring to $15.9m (£9.9m) from 2010's $1.85m.

And the cases being sponsored by Burford Capital are delivering impressive rates of return. We tipped the shares at 127p (2 February 2012) and they reached a high of 146p in March, but then market malaise pulled the price right back to 111p. This looks far too cheap, and Burford vice-chairman Hugh Steven Wilson seems to agree, buying two lots of 25,000 shares at 112p and taking his holding to 150,000.

Mills uses his bread

Christopher Mills, fund manager and director of North Atlantic Smaller Companies investment trust, has purchased 12,750 of its shares at a price of 950p each. This takes his total holding in the trust to 3.26m shares or 23.13 per cent.

Mr Mills is taking advantage of the share price which is currently at a discount to net asset value (NAV) of more than 31 per cent. He says the unquoted holdings, about 30 per cent of assets, are doing well and should have a positive impact on the NAV over the next year. There should also be realisations from these in the next couple of years.

Over the past year the NAV and share price have made negative returns.

Read our profile on North Atlantic Smaller Companies at:- http://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/2012/01/16/funds-and-etfs/fund-profiles/north-atlantic-small-cap-s-manager-highly-investedQzkOdQH9d5hvBY4bi46hBI/article.html

Halford causes a stir

Vodafone chief financial officer Andrew Halford caused a stir last week by offloading almost half of his stake in the mobile communication business. Mr Halford, who took his seat on the board in 2005, sold 976,056 ordinary shares in the company on 23 May at 171.624p each, and another 23,944 ordinary shares at 170.46p apiece later that day, netting himself £1,715,961. His move may have been personally motivated as Vodafone remains a solid investment, with cash profits steadily growing and supporting the attractive (and rising) dividend. Accordingly, we maintain our buy rating on the shares – largely due to the 5.5 per cent yield.

Director buys

Director sells

Table compiled by Robert Ansted.

Key to abbreviations: ch = chairman; ce = chief executive; cfo = chief financial officer; fd = finance director; coo = chief operating officer; cs =company secretary; md = managing director

visible-status-Standard story-url-directorsdeals_300512.xml