Christopher Mills, fund manager of the North Atlantic Smaller Companies Investment Trust (NAS), has recently purchased 14,525 shares in the trust at a price of 1,110p per share in total worth £161,227.5. The purchase takes his total holding in the trust to 23.35 per cent and follows the purchase of another 78,209 shares this month worth £834,123.
"I buy shares in the trust every year," said Mr Mills, "and just now I think the companies have particularly good prospects, in particular those in the unquoted portfolio, some of which we are trying to sell. If we manage a sale, this should give the trust’s net asset value (NAV) an uplift."
Holdings for sale include Forefront, Bionostics and Orthoproducts.
The investment trust trades at a discount to NAV of nearly 23 per cent. Although it has made positive returns over one, three and five years, its share price has not always followed, in particular over five years. But the discount to NAV is now considerably tighter than the 12-month average discount of 29.79 per cent.
Around 45 per cent of North Atlantic Smaller's holdings are unlisted and about half of this is for sale because the co-investors, private equity funds, have reached the end of their lives.
Mr Mills has more invested in the fund he runs than most other investment trust managers. Read more on this (http://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/2012/01/16/ funds-and-etfs/fund-profiles/north-atlantic-small-cap-s-manager-highly-invested-QzkOdQH9d5hvBY4bi46hBI/article.html)
Leonora Walters
Genel chairman picks up shares
The independent chairman of Genel Energy (GENL), Rodney Chase, has given the new frontier oil and gas developer a strong vote of confidence by spending £1.27m on 160,000 shares at 793p each, taking his total holding to 400,000 shares.
Mr Chase joined Genel shortly after it was formed last year in a deal with high-profile financier Nathaniel Rothschild, following posts as chairman of Petrofac, an oil and gas services company, and senior positions with BP. He is joined at the top by Tony Hayward, BP's ex-chief executive, who now runs Genel's day-to-day operations. Genel has gone from strength to strength this year, unlike Bumi, the troubled Indonesian coal miner similarly cofounded by Mr Rothschild near the height of the latest commodities boom. Genel is advancing its main operations in the Kurdistan region of Iraq while also expanding its exploration arm, having recently farmed in to licences offshore Malta and Morocco.
As of March, Messrs Haywood and Rothschild held 20.4m shares in Genel through a private company, together with Julian Metherell, Genel's chief financial officer, and the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs' UK investment banking business.
At 825p, the shares remain a buy following our buy advice at 761p in late September.
Matthew Allan
Renishaw man bails out
China's appetite for Renishaw's sophisticated measuring devices appears undimmed by prospects of more modest economic growth. Sales to the Far East more than doubled in the first quarter following a similarly spectacular second half, driven largely by demand from consumer electronics manufacturers.
Sales grew 38 per cent to a new record and Renishaw made £28.3m before tax, twice as much as last year, and in what is traditionally the company's slowest quarter. A muted reaction from the City, however, suggests the good news was already priced in - Renishaw shares have risen by a third since July's full-year results and doubled inside a year.
That probably explains why Martin Cooney, finance director at Renishaw (Ireland), has been offloading shares recently. He's just pocketed £170,000 after selling 10,000 shares at 1,700p each, three months after ditching 13,673 at 1,500p. His business makes a lot of products for Renishaw, but growth in Chinese imports of machine tools has been falling and sales in Europe and the America have been flat at best in the past three months.
It's early days but Investec Securities expects Renishaw to make an adjusted pre-tax profit of almost £96m this year, putting the shares on 16 times forward earnings. That's enough for us given the risks to global economic growth and an order book that stretches out just one month. Hold.
Lee Wild
Director buys
| Company | Director | Date | No. of shares | Price (p) | Value (£) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allocate Software | Chris Gale (fd) | 17 Oct 12 | 13,000 | 77.5 | 10,075 |
| Devro | Steve Hannam (ch) | 22 Oct 12 | 12,594 | 317.6097 | 40,000 |
| Genel Energy | Rodney Chase | 15 Oct 12 | 160,000 | 792.8 | 1,268,480 |
| International PPL | Carol Goodwin | 16 Oct 12 | 1,064 | 124.139 | 1,321 |
| Maven Income and Growth VCT 3 | William Michie | 19 Oct 12 | 14,382 | 68.5 | 9,852 |
| New Britain Palm Oil | Tan Sri Arshad | 16 Oct 12 | 10,000 | 585 | 58,500 |
| North Atlantic Sm Cos Inv Trust | Christopher Mills | 17 Oct 12 | 14,525 | 1110 | 161,228 |
| Park | Chris Houghton | 17 Oct 12 | 10,000 | 52.5 | 5,250 |
| Park | Martin Stewart | 17 Oct 12 | 10,000 | 52.5 | 5,250 |
| ProPhotonix | Mark Blodgett (ch, ceo) | 22 Oct 12 | 30,000 | US$0.0386 | US$1,158 |
| Travis Perkins | R Anderson | 16 Oct 12 | 1,000 | 1122 | 11,220 |
| Vertu Motors | Nigel Stead | 17 Oct 12 | 15,000 | 37.5 | 5,625 |
| Westhouse | Garth Milne (ch) | 18 Oct 12 | 10,000 | 17 | 1,700 |
Director sells
| Company | Director | Date | No. of shares | Price (p) | Value (£) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beazley | Adrian Cox | 08 Aug 12 | 13,071 | 165 | 21,593 |
| M.P. Evans | JD Shaw | 16 Oct 12 | 5,000 | 494 | 24,700 |
| Rathbone Brothers | Rupert Baron | 17 Oct 12 | 1,800 | 1,336 | 24,048 |
| Renishaw | Martin Cooney | 19 Oct 12 | 10,000 | 1,700 | 170,000 |
| Rotork | Robert Spurr | 19 Oct 12 | 1,000 | 2,347 | 23,470 |
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
