Interactive Investor

Insider: Glencore, Homeserve, Croda

5th June 2015 09:18

Lee Wild from interactive investor

Macaulay completes Glencore exit

Glencore chiefs have been able to sell billions of pounds of company shares since the final lock-in period expired last month. There's been no mad rush for the exit, but one man has been steadily offloading millions of shares in the commodity trader and accumulated an absolute fortune.

Non-executive director William Macaulay, who runs US private equity firm First Reserve (FR), has been a big seller of Glencore shares over the past six months. Since December, Macaulay's FR Galaxy Holdings has raked in almost £390 million from the sale of 135 million shares at 278-302p.

On Monday, FR sold its last 34.3 million shares at an average price of 278p. A week ago it sold 7.7 million at 287p.

First Reserve, along with BlackRock, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and China's Zijin Mining Group, invested in Glencore through a $2.3 billion convertible bond in 2009. Glencore floated two years later at 530p.

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Homeserve NED doubles stake

Homeserve made a reported profit of £76.7 million in the year to March, three times as much as the year before. The home emergency insurer, which was fined over £30 million in 2014 for mis-selling insurance policies, also increased customer numbers from 5.3 million to 6.3 million.

Management has decided to pay a special dividend of 30p per share in July, and the shares have reached levels last seen in 2011. But senior independent director Mark Morris clearly believes there's more in the tank. He's just doubled his stake, paying over £66,600 for 15,312 shares at 435p each.

He's not alone. Director Stella David last month picked up 10,450 shares at 430.6p, a day after chairman Barry Gibson paid 419p a share for 40,000 shares and non-exec Ben Mingay added 20,000 at a fraction more.

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Croda's Frew keeps buying

Anita Frew has splashed out over £290,000 on share in Croda, the exporter of ingredients for make-up, anti-wrinkle creams and industrial lubricants, in the past week. Frew joined the board in March and will take over the chairman's role from Martin Flower in September. And the deputy chairman at Lloyds Banking Group waited just one month after first-quarter results to make her move.

Prior to this Thursday, five tranches of 1,500 shares had been bought since 29 May. But Frew added another 1,000 at 2,889.8p and 1,500 at 2,901p on 4 June, taking her stake to 10,000 shares, worth almost £287,000 at today's prices.

April's three-month numbers revealed that currency concerns have eased, and that sales in its high growth markets - North America, Asia and Latin America - are still rising. The Life Sciences division is growing fast, too.

Sales in the first quarter ended 31 March jumped by 4% to £284.9 million, in line with expectations, and driven entirely by volumes, not price. Profit margin increased "slightly" too. A strong dollar was offset by a weak euro, so the currency impact on sales was negligible. Sales in Western Europe have stabilised year-on-year.

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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.