Lupus Capital sees benefits of diversification

Although its building products division suffered from the global downturn in construction activity, its arm specialising in couplings for the oil and gas industry put in a robust performance.

Shares are already up by more than 50 per cent since January but two directors last week increased their stakes. Chairman Jamie Pike and chief operating officer Denis Mulhall each bought 65,000 shares at 77p each and hold just under a million shares combined.

Weir Group chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin has increased his holding in the Glasgow engineering group. He bought 10,000 shares at 957p and now holds 103,500.

Cairn Energy chief Sir Bill Gammell has sold just under 3 million worth of shares for personal tax planning reasons. He disposed of 721,042 shares at 414.4p each although still retains a stake of more than 3.2m shares.

Two directors at Liontrust Asset Management have upped their holdings. Chief executive Nigel Legge and chief operating officer Vinay Abrol each bought 180,039 shares at 105p a share. Legge now holds 1.05m shares and Abrol 590,000 shares.

Glen Moreno, the former chairman of UK Financial Investments who is joining the board of Lloyds Banking Group as a non-executive director, has bought his first shares in the company.

Tim Ingram, a non-executive director at stockbroker Collins Stewart, has bought 250,000 shares at 77.69p each. He has 285,000 shares.

Sir Ian Wood, chairman of Aberdeen's Wood Group, has transferred more than 333,000 shares to the Wood Family Trust cutting his holding to 27.9 million shares.