You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2008.
I’m intrigued.
Galiform (GFRM, 71p) own Howdens Joinery, which supplies kitchens and joinery products to the building trade.
In a week of turmoil in the UK housebuilding industry prompted by Persimmon warning they would stop building new homes, I find that the CFO of Galiform, Mark Robson, makes his first purchase of shares since he joined the board in 2005.
Robson on April 15th bought 132,000 shares at 77 1/2 p, investing £102,000.
As a result Galiform goes on the watch list.
Addendum May 1st : I’m no longer intrigued. Stock is up 7% today on results better than the market anticipated. See reuters comment here.
A mail from John Mauldin has just hit my inbox. He picks up on a comment by Soc Gen showing that analysts are always behind the curve when it comes to earnings forecasts (did you know this?). He goes on to conclude that the likely fall in company earnings this recession is nowhere near being discounted by the share market (see http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/index.asp article ‘Asleep at the wheel’).
I’ve borrowed from the newsletter an interesting slide summarising a recent Duke University CFO survey which strengthens my argument for watching directors behaviour, in preference to listening to what they say. Notably that
‘..CFOs are around 57% optimistic about the economy…., but are 68% optimistic about the outlook for their own firms!’
There’s a plethora of information about directors share dealings in Cairn Energy ( CNE, 2915p) last week.
If you filter out the sales by executive directors of shares released under the Long Term Incentive Plan, and eliminate shareholdings sold and bought back before CGT changes, you are left with four notable changes in holdings:
1. CEO Sir Bill Gammall has sold 50,000 shares taking his holding to 377,000 shares.
2. Exploration Director Dr Mike Watts sold 40,000 shares taking his holding to 160,000 shares.
In my mind both of the above sales are interesting but not hugely significant.
Of greater interest are the sales by Non Executive Directors as follows:
3. Non executive Chairman Norman Murray halves his holding by selling 40,000 shares at £28.61, releasing £1.1m, and
4. Non executive Director Todd Hart reduces his holding by more than a third, selling 10,000 shares to leave him with 18,000.
I believe these sales to be significant, both in value terms, and as a proportion of the directors’ position (holding) in Cairn prior to the sales.
Source: http://www.Digitallook.com
I see Paul Walsh, CEO of Diageo (DGE 1055p) has sold just under a million pounds of shares, resulting from an options exercise the same day.
Looking back, he always sells pretty much all the shares he receives as a result of exercising his options, not just a portion sufficient to pay the tax, so behaviourally this is no change from previous sales.
What I did notice though is that he has been very clever at hitting all the peaks in the Diageo share price chart over the last two years.
To best see this, go to digitallook.com, search for diageo, draw a chart, and overlay directors dealings.
The chances are that he’s done it again this time, and 1055p may well be the recent peak of Diageo for a few months.
