Insider: Rolls-Royce director makes new £485k trade

A bullish Rolls-Royce Holdings (LSE:RR.) director has made a bumper investment in the £100 billion-valued engines giant by spending £485,000 with shares trading near to record levels.

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Former Embraer boss Paulo Cesar Silva, who was appointed as a Rolls non-executive director in September 2023, bought shares on Wednesday at a price of 1,161.7p.

The Brazilian’s previous purchase of a Rolls stake took place at the end of 2023, when he bought a similar number of shares to last week’s level but at a much-reduced cost of £126,000.

Those dealings were priced at 294.8p, meaning a paper profit of £350,000 based on last month’s peak of 1,196p. Rolls closed on Friday at 1,138.50p, a year-to-date rise of 93%.

The rapid ascent has propelled Rolls to fifth in the FTSE 100 rankings by market capitalisation, although it will need to double in size again to overtake leader AstraZeneca.

UBS, which first recommended buying the shares when they were 153p in March 2023, recently backed further upside for shares with an improved price target to 1,350p.

The bank expects a trading update on 13 November to reiterate the improved operating profit and cash flow guidance given at forecast-beating interim results on 31 July.

Rolls-Royce chief executive Tufan Erginbilgic later told the BBC that the group has the "potential" to become the UK's highest-valued company, fuelled by its role in powering the data centres behind the adoption of artificial intelligence.

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Last week’s purchase by the former Embraer boss was disclosed to the stock market on Friday afternoon, alongside a £30,000 investment by fellow non-executive director Angela Strank.

Her move on Thursday at a price 1,154p compared with the 126p-a-share she paid in one of her previous purchases in February 2023.

She spent four decades at BP, most recently as head of downstream technology and chief scientist, and worked at the oil giant alongside Rolls boss Erginbilgic.

Rising fast

Speedy Hire (LSE:SDY) directors have matched their company’s optimism over the potential of a “transformational” supply agreement by spending £150,000 on shares.

The purchases involving Speedy’s chief financial officer, board chair and two non-executive directors were made after the Merseyside-based firm secured the rights to supply digital marketplace HSS ProService with all its core hire equipment.

It estimates that last week’s deal will generate additional hire revenue of between £50 and £55 million in the 2027 financial year and provide Speedy with a “material opportunity” for growth in the medium and long term.

The total consideration is £35 million, which includes the acquisition of all HSS core equipment currently on hire to ProService customers as well as three HSS service centres.

The agreement is funded from existing banking facilities, while Speedy intends to save an estimated £8 million through a reduction in its 2026 dividend to 1p a share from this year’s 2.6p. This will be followed by at least 5% growth in 2027 and 2028.

Chief executive Dan Evans said: "This is a transformational agreement for Speedy, made possible by the progress of the group under our Velocity growth strategy.

“It will provide Speedy customers with greater choice and an enhanced service, while providing ProService customers the ability to indirectly access our national network, larger equipment fleet and faster delivery capability.”

The transaction will see Speedy take a 10% stake in ProService Building Services Marketplace, which is set to become the new name of HSS Hire. The deal forms part of HSS’s exit from its traditional asset hire business, which it intends to sell to Endless.

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Speedy Hire shares jumped 13% on the back of the transaction, returning the FTSE All-Share stock to near where it started the year.

It added that it continued to back the targets of its five-year Velocity transformation programme, which it set out at a capital markets event in 2023. These point to revenues of £650 million and a profit margin of about 28%, compared with £416.6 million and 23.3% in 2025 results

House broker Panmure Liberum responded to the HSS deal by increasing its earnings per share forecasts for the current year by 14% and by 35% for 2028.

It expects interim results on 26 November to be challenging but still raised its target price from 35p to 50p, describing a multiple of 5.5 times 2026 calendar year earnings as “far too cheap”.

Joint house broker Peel Hunt reiterated its price target of 50p. It said: “Whilst there are regulatory hurdles, the benefits for customers should see the agreement progress. We expect the shares, currently on 5.6 times forecast 2027 earnings, to respond positively too.”