Director Dealings: Hasgrove has prospects

Last week, chairman Godfrey Taylor, chief executive Rod Hyde and finance director Paul Sanders bought 275,000 shares at around 38p each.

In November, the company said it had seen a significant improvement in activity in the final quarter of 2009 with new business wins from clients including Coca-Cola and GSK.

The company has a portfolio of public relations and marketing businesses, including Amaze and Odyssey.

The shares rose strongly on news of the directors' buying, but still trade at half last summer's price. Their activity suggests the reported upturn has continued into 2010. Final results are expected in the spring.

Mark Turrell, chief executive of software group Imaginatik has topped up his already substantial stake in the company. He bought 8,602 shares at 4.65p each and now holds just under 78 million shares.

Eric Tracey, a non-executive director at home shopping group Findel, has bought his first stake with the purchase of 50,000 shares at 30p each.

Murray Smith, sales and marketing director at Mattioli Woods, has sold part of his holding in the pensions advisory group. He disposed of 50,000 shares at 235p each but still retains 253,866 shares.

Mark Tincknell, chief executive of property maintenance group Connaught, has bought 100,000 shares at 308.25p. He also exercised options over an additional 81,000 shares and retained all of them. Tincknell now holds more than a million shares in the group.

The wife of BG Group non-executive director Mark Seligman has bought 5,000 shares in the gas group at 1,168p each. The couple now hold 8,000 shares.

Andrew Higginson, chief executive of retailing services at Tesco, has reduced his stake with the sale of more than 2million worth of shares.

He disposed of 500,000 shares at 426.6p each, although he retains a stake of 1.26 million shares.

Two non-executive directors at medical group Silence Therapeutics have bought shares in company.

Annette Clancy bought her first stake with the purchase of 68,284 shares and Jerry Randall bought 70,000 shares to take his holding up to 120,000 shares. They each paid around 14p a share.