Charles Bligh, the boss of TalkTalk Telecom's (TALK) business division, must enjoy a challenge. He took on the role of security chief within weeks of the highly publicised cyber attack on the cut-price telco in October 2015. In a bid to win investors' trust, he has splurged almost £1.5m on roughly 618,000 shares in the group.
On the same day as his purchase, TalkTalk blamed the hack for the loss of at least 95,000 customers and £15m in sales in the third quarter. Management also pegged clean-up costs at £40m to £45m. But it remained confident that a second-half rebound would drive cash profits up at least 4 per cent this financial year. Accordingly, analysts at Raymond James expect EPS of 10.4p, rising to 16.8p for the year to March 2017 (8.2p in FY2015).