Insider: Who's doubling up?

Jimmy Choo man's windfall

Jimmy Choo shares had a decent run up to half-year results published late August. In the end, revenue was confirmed as up 9%, or 3.8% without a currency benefit to £173 million, better than the wider market.

Operating profit in the six months ended 30 June was up almost 43% at £25.3 million, and adjusted earnings per share was 27% higher at 3.8p.

Chief executive Pierre Denis was rightly chuffed, and bullish about the months ahead: "We have made a good start to the second half and we remain optimistic about our prospects both for this year and for our performance in the future."

However, the man who ran the John Galliano empire before joining the shoe and accessories giant was clearly delighted to take advantage of the 25% rally into these results. He sold 320,000 Jimmy Choo shares at 125.625p each, netting £402,000, although he still retains nearly 2.7 million, currently worth over £3.4 million.

Choo shares traded at just 92.75p in June, and even now swap hands for less than the 140p IPO price nearly two years ago. A chart breakout last month looks promising, although any further setback in the global economy will hurt demand for Choo's expensive footwear.

Lack of belief at Liontrust?

Adrian Collins, chairman at Liontrust Asset Management, has been refilling the coffers, bagging £47,000 by exercising some share options. But it's Jennifer Collins that's brought home the real money, selling 200,000 shares at 348p.

Up fivefold since 2011 and near a nine-year high, the share sale made the Collinses almost three-quarters-of-a-million pounds.

In a trading update published just a few weeks after the EU referendum, chief executive John Ions reported another quarter of positive flows totalling £66 million, despite uncertainty around the EU referendum. Assets under management on 30 June 2016 was steady at £4.8 billion.

Double purchase at Eckoh

Wind the clock back a week and Eckoh was chugging along nicely. In June, the firm, which supplies secure payment products and customer contact solutions to the finance, telecom and retail sector, reported a sharp uptick in full-year revenue and profit, and increased the dividend by 20%.

In truth, most of the share price growth happened in 2013/14. There have been some high points since, but it's the recent low that's grabbing headlines.

Last week, Eckoh warned that profit would miss expectations this year due to cost overruns on a big contract at its non-core US business. It'll lose the firm £600,000 in the six months to September and £700,000 over the year to March 2017.

However, chief executive Nik Philpot and non-executive chairman Chris Batterham are backing themselves to turn things around. The pair bought 150,000 and 50,000 shares respectively, both at 33p, taking their stakes to over 5.8 million and 1 million shares.

"The medium and longer term outlook for the company remains positive, with the transition to a recurring revenue model and decisive action at the PSS professional services division resulting in an improvement in the certainty and the quality of its earnings," they say.

Dr Helmes buys BATS twice

Also worth a mention is British American Tobacco, where Dr Marion Helmes has just been made a non-executive director.

We hear this week that the German national, appointed on 1 August, has bought 900 shares at £47.58 and a further 3,600 at £48.09. Splashing out well over £200,000 on a stake in the firm following a 20% rally since the Brexit vote certainly shows confidence.

Despite the recent surge in the share price to a new high, driven by the lure of substantial overseas earnings and a substantial and reliable dividend, Deutsche Bank wrote today that BATS has still underperformed the market since 27 June and remains on its 'buy' list.

This article is for information and discussion purposes only and does not form a recommendation to invest or otherwise. The value of an investment may fall. 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.