Rugby converts portfolio

Published on Saturday 21 November 2009 14:16

SINCE the beginning of the year, Rugby Estates has been disposing of its property portfolio to focus instead on its asset management arm which works with the likes of Bank of Scotland and Merrill Lynch.

Two recent sales of property are expected to take the amount returned to shareholders from the sell off to more than 102p a share so far. Further property sales will take place over the next five years.

Shares in the group are already up by more than 50 per cent this year but non-executive director John Jackson appears to believe they still offer good value. He purchased 50,000 shares at 263p each to take his stake to 116,259 shares.

&#149 Michael Findlay, a non-executive director of courier firm UK Mail, has bought his first shares in the group. He purchased 1,500 shares each at 333p in the firm, which last week announced interim profits rose by 18 per cent.

&#149 John McCall, chairman of building products group Alumasc, topped up his stake with the purchase of 9,460 shares at 105p each. He now holds more than 4.1 million shares.

&#149 Christopher Shaw, a director at accident group Ai Claims Solutions, bought 21,020 shares at 15.1p to take his holding up to 56,663.

&#149 Two directors of fund management group Schroders have sold more than 15 million worth of shares after exercising options. Chief executive Michael Dobson exercised options over 1.8 million shares for 4.3m and sold just over 1.06 million of them for a total of 10.14m. Vice-chairman Massimo Tosato took up options over 171,098 shares and sold them all for a total of 1.63m.

&#149 Sir Win Bischoff, chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, bought 250,000 shares at 89.7p each ahead of its 13.5 billion rights issue.

&#149 Don Robert, chief executive of credit checking firm Experian, has banked more than 4m from selling shares. His move came after the company reported higher interim profits. Robert disposed of 700,000 shares at around 390p each.

&#149 Mick Davis, chief executive of mining group Xstrata, has made his second major share sale since October after exercising options. Davis exercised options over 755,000 shares at 239p and sold at 1026p.

He made a profit of more than 7m in October by selling another tranche of options.