Insider Special: best and worst director deals of 2025

Company directors understand the health of their business best, which explains how one lucky boss tripled his money in 2025. Graeme Evans reveals more winners and others hoping for a turnaround in 2026.

29th December 2025 08:55

by Graeme Evans from interactive investor

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The buying of Glencore (LSE:GLEN) shares at the height of trade war turmoil and well-timed Saga (LSE:SAGA), Kier Group (LSE:KIE) and Next (LSE:NXT) investments have resulted in big paper profits for directors during 2025.

Insiders at Tesco (LSE:TSCO), Currys (LSE:CURY) and Wickes Group (LSE:WIX) have also been rewarded, but those investors who followed the dip-buying lead of directors at Diageo (LSE:DGE), B&M European Value Retail SA (LSE:BME) and Tate & Lyle (LSE:TATE) have so far been left disappointed.

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The £485,000 spent by a Rolls-Royce Holdings (LSE:RR.) non-executive director is little changed in value but a fellow board member has fared much better during another strong year for the aeroengines giant.

The dealings of board members who put their own money on the line can be a sign that they think the stock market has gone too far in its reaction to bad or unexpected news.

That looked to be the case at Glencore in April, when long-serving finance boss Steven Kalmin spent £1.4 million on the miner’s shares in the teeth of a stock market rout.

Shares had fallen to 233p as the price of copper, thermal coal and other key commodities in Glencore’s portfolio slid on fears that tariffs on China and US goods would derail demand.

Non-executive director Martin Gilbert also viewed the share price slump from 380p in January as a buying opportunity, disclosing investments of £11,750 at 232.5p in April and another worth £27,000 at the higher price of 277p in August.

The shares have since recovered to 387p, valuing Kalmin’s buy-the-dip investment at about £2.3 million.

Insider dealings can help investors measure boardroom confidence in a restructuring plan or be taken as a sign that directors think the market has mispriced the upside potential.

Examples include April’s buying of Saga shares by the company’s chair Roger De Haan, who is the over-50s holidays-to-insurance firm’s former chief executive and the son of founder Sidney.

He bought a £2 million stake, while chief executive Mike Hazell made an investment of £100,000 as the pair showed their confidence in Saga’s ambition to double profits to £100 million.

April’s investments by Hazell and De Haan took place at 124p and 135.1p respectively, with the shares up to 380p by 19 December to value the latter’s stake at £5.6 million. De Haan also spent £3.3 million on shares at a price of 274p in September.

The new boss of B&M European Value Retail has been a regular buyer of his company’s shares as he ties his own money to the outcome of his back-to-basics turnaround strategy.

Tjeerd Jegen’s dealings included £265,000 in September at between 230p and 241.8p before he spent £200,000 on four consecutive trading days at prices that included a record low of 155.2p.

However, there’s been no honeymoon period since taking the helm as the company has issued two profit warnings in as many weeks in early October and the shares remain at 164p.

Despite the early setbacks, it’s worth remembering that Jegen and the other directors in our coverage are invested for the longer term.

The path to recovery for Diageo has also taken longer than many in the City expected, having fallen below the 2,000p threshold for the first time in almost a decade in June.

It was at this point that GSK finance boss Julie Brown, who sits on the board of the Guinness and Smirnoff owner as a non-executive director, spent £53,000 on shares at a price of 1,972p.

Fears over continued pressure on US spirits volumes due to the lower frequency of consumption and impact of downtrading, have left shares languishing at 1,670p near the end of 2025.

Meanwhile, two senior Tate & Lyle directors who spent £157,000 at March’s decade low price of 537.6p have lost about 30% of their original investment.

Shares have continued their fall from October 2024’s 800p to stand near 375p as softer demand conditions have offset recent initiatives to improve earnings quality.

Meanwhile, Currys directors continue to reap the benefits of the company’s turnaround success.

The rebound has taken shares from 49p in January 2024, when finance director Bruce Marsh made an investment worth £29,430, to the 131p seen after half-year results in mid-December.

Buyers in 2025 included senior independent director Octavia Morley, who made her investment in February at a price of 89.5p.

Tesco shares were already at a decade high of 371p when the supermarket’s chair Gerry Murphy picked up a stake worth £150,000 in late January.

The strong run from near 200p in autumn 2022 continued during 2025 as the stock peaked at 475p in November before settling at 441p towards the end of the year.

Wickes’ chair Christopher Rogers backed the DIY chain to deliver further upside when he disclosed £63,000 of share purchases at a price of 175p in late March.

Shares were already up 15% year-to-date and 28% higher than the former Whitbread finance director’s previous purchase two years earlier. The shares have since risen to 237p.

Next non-executive director Amy Stirling spent £55,000 on the retailer’s shares in September after they came under pressure in the wake of annual results.

Stirling, who joined the board last year, made her investment at 11,633p. Shares rallied as far as 14,580p in the following two months before settling at 13,640p, an upside of 17%.

Four Kier non-executive directors, including chair Matthew Lester, have been rewarded after acting in the wake of the City’s negative reaction to results in March.

The 13% slide was driven by disappointment that the construction services firm did not upgrade full-year guidance.

The quartet spent a total of £67,000 at a price of 124p and have since seen shares rally to about 222p, as Kier benefits from a strong order book and good multi-year visibility due to the UK’s infrastructure spending commitments.

One of the more eye-catching investments of the year involved the £485,000 of Rolls-Royce shares bought in October by former Embraer boss Paulo Cesar Silva.

The non-executive director’s dealings at a near record price of 1,161.7p were followed by a rare period of weakness for the resurgent company, which traded as low as 1,029p in late November.

They later recovered to 1,174p, just above his purchase price and extending the paper profit on an earlier £126,000 investment he made at the end of 2023 to about £350,000.

Other boardroom buyers included Angela Strank, who picked up shares in March at the price of 736p and again in October at 1,154p. The former BP director has been a regular buyer of Rolls shares since joining the board in 2020, including at 126p-a-share in February 2023.

These articles are provided for information purposes only. Occasionally, an opinion about whether to buy or sell a specific investment may be provided by third parties. The content is not intended to be a personal recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or product, or to adopt any investment strategy as it is not provided based on an assessment of your investing knowledge and experience, your financial situation or your investment objectives. The value of your investments, and the income derived from them, may go down as well as up. You may not get back all the money that you invest. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.

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