Just days after impressing the City with better-than-expected full-year results, XP Power (XPP) chairman Larry Tracey and deputy chairman and founder James Peters sold shares worth over £3m in the maker of power controllers for electronic equipment. The first and larger tranche of over 137,000 shares went for 1,755p - the same price achieved by president of global sales and marketing Mike Laver, who cashed £200,000 a day earlier. Mr Tracey and Mr Peters sold another 20,000 each at 1,700p the following week.
This, however, is clearly not driven by a lack of faith. Few directors have sold shares in recent times. Mr Tracey did twice last year, but Mr Peter's last trades in 2012 were actually purchases. Mr Tracey still owns a £19.5m stake and Mr Peters' interest is worth in excess of £35m. Only last month the company reported a 13 per cent increase in pre-tax profit to £22.9m, on revenue up 8 per cent.