Newly-appointed BATM (BATM) chairman Dr Gideon Chitayat has shown he means business: he has spent £309,000 on shares in the telecom and medical technology group in less than a month.
After whetting his appetite with the purchase of 600,000 shares in December, he has now tripled his stake to 2m shares in his first week on the job. Investors will welcome the morale boost: shares in BATM have slumped a fifth in the past year. That reflects the group's struggling telecoms division, which modernises communication networks. It has faced fierce competition from low-cost Chinese vendors and a global slowdown in telcos' network investments.
BATM is betting that new products and growing demand for high-speed '4G' networks will rejuvenate its prospects. In recent months it has launched CloudMetro 100 - a virtualised IT platform that augments mobile networks - and won a $2m (£1.3m) contract to help a client integrate 4G into its Asia Pacific network. Promisingly, it has struck a deal with Oracle that will see the US tech giant help bring BATM’s 'big data' product to market. And its medical equipment division is growing quickly; first-half sales there rose 18 per cent as telecom revenues slumped 15 per cent.
Broker finnCap forecasts full-year cash profits of $1.5m, giving nil EPS, down from $2.3m and 0.2¢.
| Buys | |||||||
| Company | Director | Date | No of shares | Price (p) | Value (£) | Holding (shares) | Holding (%) |
| Aberdeen New Dawn | S Rippingall | 06 Jan 15 | 12,500 | 177.78 | 22,223 | 12,500 | 0.010 |
| Alliance Trust | John Hylands | 05 Jan 15 | 236 | 480 | 1,133 | 84,717 | 0.015 |
| BATM Advanced Communications | Dr. Gideon Chitayat (ch) | 06 Jan 15 | 1,400,000 | 15.5 | 217,000 | 2,000,000 | 0.500 |
| British American Tobacco | R Burrows (ch) | 31 Dec 14 | 5,000 | 3,520.34 | 176,017 | 15,000 | 0.001 |
| Centrica | Ian Meakins | 29 Dec 14 | 498 | 283.5 | 1,412 | 11,723 | <0.001 |
| Centrica | Margherita Della Valle | 29 Dec 14 | 679 | 283.5 | 1,925 | 14,944 | <0.001 |
| Digital Barriers* Ω | Tom Black | 06 Jan 15 | 540,540 | 37 | 200,000 | 4,784,968 | 5.660 |
| Digital Barriers* Ω | Zak Doffman | 06 Jan 15 | 67,567 | 37 | 25,000 | 732,644 | 0.870 |
| Digital Barriers* Ω | Colin Evans | 06 Jan 15 | 81,081 | 37 | 30,000 | 774,920 | 0.920 |
| Digital Barriers* | Sharon Cooper | 06 Jan 15 | 67,567 | 37 | 25,000 | 67,567 | 0.080 |
| Digital Barriers* Ω | Bernie Waldron | 06 Jan 15 | 54,054 | 37 | 20,000 | 113,536 | 0.130 |
| Digital Barriers* | Paul Taylor | 06 Jan 15 | 27,027 | 37 | 10,000 | 75,794 | 0.090 |
| Empiric Student Property | Paul Hadaway (ce) | 29 Dec 14 | 125,000 | 102.25 | 127,813 | 1,000,001 | 0.667 |
| Empiric Student Property | Michael Enright (cfo) | 29 Dec 14 | 125,000 | 102.25 | 127,813 | 645,000 | 0.430 |
| Fuller, Smith & Turner | Simon Emeny | 05 Jan 15 | 3,182 | 91.5 | 2,912 | na | na |
| GlaxoSmithKline Ω | Sir Andrew Witty (ce) | 29 Dec 14 | 1,066 | 1,398.38 | 14,907 | 857,816 | 0.018 |
| Hiscox Ltd | Andrea Rosen | 30 Dec 14 | 2,561 | 720.91 | 18,463 | 71,027 | 0.022 |
| Hiscox Ltd | Ernst Jansen | 30 Dec 14 | 2,561 | 720.91 | 18,463 | 79,679 | 0.025 |
| Indivior | Shaun Thaxter (ce) | 31 Dec 14 | 5,276 | 141.87 | 7,485 | 110,000 | 0.015 |
| Indivior | Shaun Thaxter (ce) | 31 Dec 14 | 20,000 | 141.87 | 28,374 | 104,724 | 0.015 |
| Intu Properties ♥ | John Whittaker | 29 Dec 14 | 6,000 | 337.8 | 20,268 | 294,695,452 | 22.379 |
| Intu Properties ♥ | John Whittaker | 29 Dec 14 | 1,460,000 | 342 | 4,993,200 | 296,155,452 | 22.490 |
| KBC Advanced Technologies ♥ | Oliver Scott | 31 Dec 14 | 35,000 | 88.57 | 31,000 | 9,858,428 | 12.091 |
| Metal Tiger | Paul Johnson | 29 Dec 14 | 250,000 | 0.976 | 2,440 | 4,125,000 | 1.648 |
| Nature | Jan Vesseur (coo) | 30 Dec 14 | 100,000 | 11.9 | 11,900 | 280,000 | 0.353 |
| Nature | Nigel Sandy (ch) | 05 Jan 15 | 10,000 | 12.8 | 1,280 | 408,000 | 0.510 |
| Quintain Estates & Development | William Rucker | 05 Jan 15 | 3,106 | 96.58 | 3,000 | 460,614 | 0.088 |
| Seneca Global Income & Growth | Jimmy McCulloch | 05 Jan 15 | 15,000 | 135 | 20,250 | 15,000 | 0.040 |
| Sells | |||||||
| Company | Director | Date | No of shares | Price (p) | Value (£) | Holding (shares) | Holding (%) |
| Avon Rubber | Stella Pirie | 02 Jan 15 | 10,000 | 757.5 | 75,750 | 42,000 | 0.140 |
| GB | Richard Law (ce) | 30 Dec 14 | 21,700 | 148 | 32,116 | 1,939,730 | 1.607 |
| Glencore ♥ † | William Macaulay | 30 Dec 14 | 27,025 | 300.15 | 81,116 | 149,981,250 | 1.142 |
| Glencore ♥ † | William Macaulay | 29 Dec 14 | 4,335,547 | 302.03 | 13,094,653 | 150,008,275 | 1.142 |
| Sprue Aegis | Peter Lawrence | 15 Dec 15 | 50,000 | 314.25 | 157,125 | 465,214 | 1.020 |
*Placing/tender/open offer ♥Spouse/connected party †Sold by ECP Galaxy Holdings ΩIsa/Sipp | |||||||
