Director dealings: Gresham sums add up

Published on Saturday 10 May 2008 14:25

FINANCIAL software company Gresham Computing appears to be starting to benefit from a change in strategy in recent years. The company has moved away from a licensing model for its products to instead sell them as a service. The shift is aimed at generating growing recurring revenues from clients.

Although recent final results showed losses in 2007 widened, trading in the first quarter was significantly better than the same period last year.

The results helped the group's shares continue to recover from March's 43p low, but directors appear to still see them as good value. In September several directors bought at 110p and chief executive officer Andrew Walton-Green further added to his stake in January at 73p.

Last week he bought 36,500 at 67p and new chairman and ex-Citigroup executive Eric Sepkes bought 73,500 shares at the same price.

&#149 Wolfson Microelectronics chairman Michael Ruettgers has bought 100,000 shares in the company at 138p per share, lifting his stake to 300,000 shares or a 0.25% stake. Last month, Wolfson Microelectronics saw first-quarter pretax profits fall by 30% due to challenging industry and economic conditions but offset losses with strong mobile handset, digital camera and gaming sales.

&#149 Sir Tony O'Reilly, the chief executive of newspaper group Independent News and Media, has bought 500,000 shares at ?2.05 to take his holding to almost 28% of The Independent's owner. Earlier this month it was revealed that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim had bought a 1% stake in the company.

&#149 John Buchanan, chairman of medical devices group Smith and Nephew, has bought 35,000 shares at 5.68 each. He now holds 156,000 shares in the company.

&#149 Sir William Castell, a non-executive director at BP, has bought 32,500 shares at 615.5p each. He now holds 82,500 shares.

&#149 Nicholas Hewson, chairman of Fife-based security group Croma, bought 250,000 shares at 3p in the Aim-listed company.