Director Dealings: Care home confidence

WHILE care home specialist Ashley House last week admitted NHS spending cuts were causing uncertainty in its markets, the company said it was confident of long-term prospects.

Reporting a pre-tax loss of 4.57 million for the six months to the end of October, compared with a profit of 1.46m last time, the company said it was seeing increasing activity on site and a solid pipeline of schemes.

Following the results, several directors went into the market to increase their stakes.

Chairman William Wells and chief executive Jonathan Holmes were among the buyers, each taking 88,000 at 28p as part of the buying spree.

• Steve Driver, executive chairman at global construction consultancy Driver Group, has sold 1.16 million shares at 21.5p each. He still retains more than 2.6 million shares in the company, almost 10 per cent of its share capital.

• Jessica Burley, a non-executive director at fashion group Jacques Vert, has bought 10,000 shares at 17.55p per share. It represented her first holding in the company.

• Ranjit Murugason, a director at brand consultancy Parallel Media, has bought 12,500 shares at 36.2p per share. He now holds 775,000 shares.

• Robert Contreras, chief executive of vehicle hire group Northgate, has seen his stake in the company rise after a purchase of shares by his wife. She bought 6,800 shares at 294p each to take the couple's holding up to 111,800.

• Dursley Scott, a non-executive director at the Bahamas Petroleum Company, has bought 100,000 shares at 15.825p each.

He now holds 315,000 shares.

• Bruce Burrows, finance director at JKX Oil & Gas, has sold 115,000 shares at 290p each. He still holds more than 181,896 shares in the company.

• Andrew Boteler, finance director of fibre optic group Gooch and Housego, has sold 15,000 shares at 515p each.

He retains a stake of 16,065 shares.

• David Pugh, the group finance director of the care provider CareTech, has bought 6,150 shares at 240p each.