Director Dealings: Resounding show of confidence by Eckoh chiefs

SPEECH recognition specialist Eckoh, which works with call centre operators to enable them to automatically deal with customers, recently announced a three-year deal with hotel chain Premier Inn.

Eckoh aims to reduce costs for clients by dealing with routine calls and free up call centre staff to deal with more complex enquiries.

Last week two directors increased their holdings in the company. Chief executive Nik Philpot bought 150,000 shares at 6.75p each, to take his stake up to 2.9 million shares.

Chairman Chris Batterham bought 250,000 shares at a similar price and now holds 750,000 shares.

• Tony Eve, finance director of cloud computing provider Nasstar, has bought 65,573 shares at 15.25p each. He now holds 241,928 shares.

• Harry Dobson, the Borders-based mining tycoon, has increased his stake in Rambler Metals & Mining, where he is chairman, with the purchase of 500,000 shares at 32.9p each and now holds more than 8.2 million shares.

• Francesco Scolaro, chairman of Africa-focused miner Paragon Diamonds, has taken his stake in the company past 86 per cent.

Scolaro bought 1.29 million shares at 30.47p and now holds 123 million shares in the company.

• David Fawcett, group development director at distribution group Wincanton, has sold the bulk of his holding. He sold 15,534 shares at 162p each to reduce his stake to 1,397 shares.

• Michael Coupe, commercial director of retailer Sainsbury's, upped his stake with the purchase of 8,621 shares at 390p a time. He now holds 798,285 shares.

• Johannes Sittard, chairman of mining group Eurasian Natural Resources Corp has sold more than 1.8m worth of shares. He disposed of 150,000 shares at 1,120p each but retains a stake of 450,000 shares.

• Randy Eppler, a director of mining group Frontier, has bought 500,000 shares at 6p each.

• Phil Hickman, chairman of electronic payments group Earthport, has bought his first stake in the business with the purchase of 100,000 shares at 20.8p per share.

• Philippe Duleyrie, a non-executive director at MCB Finance, has bought 25,000 shares at 20p. He now owns 444,211 shares.

• Blair Jenkins, chief executive of convenience foods manufacturer SnackTime, has topped up his stake in the company with the purchase of 5,000 shares at 130p each.