One of the biggest small cap sales last week was Lycopodium (ASX:LYL) director Rodney Leonard, who made $858,108 selling $2.2 million shares on-market via his company Caddy Fox.

He’s still a substantial shareholder, holding 5.42 per cent of the register.

Now that Phoslock Water Solutions (ASX:PHK) is doing well, managing director Robert Schuitema has sold $441,630 worth of stock — less than 10 per cent of his holding — to fund tax payments for his company Sail Ahead Pty Ltd.

Mr Schuitema told Stockhead, just before jetting out to China, this was the first time he’d sold in 12 years aside from exercising options.

He said he found it frustrating when staff or managers of listed companies were made to feel guilty for selling down — when often they were paid largely in performance options.

Phoslock shares began rising rapidly in December, after a solid run over the prior 12 months.

Mr Schuitema sold on February 26, the day before Phoslock shares hit a 52-week high, for a price of 29c. He still controls 14.1 million shares.

The board at Silver Chef (ASX:SIV) were on a buying spree last week, with only the chair and one director not jumping on the stock.

ndrew Kemp, Bede King, Sophie Mitchell and Patrick Tapper together spent $375,275, with Mr Kemp taking the lion’s share with a $263,516 purchase.

On-market purchases of the 82,194 shares were for prices between $4.49 and $4.90 on Wednesday and Thursday last week.

On Friday Silver Chef closed at $4.75.

Scottish Pacific Group (ASX:SCO) chair — and ex-Macquarie banker — Patrick Elliot bought $500,594 worth of stock on market for his super fund. He now controls 831,895 shares.

Computershare founder Chris Morris bought $232,600 shares in Smart Parking (ASX:SPZ) last week. The trade brought his stake in the company he chairs to 108.4 million – or 30 per cent of the register.

Geoff Pearce was on a spending spree last week. He spent $238,289 on shares in McPherson’s (ASX:MCP), where he sits on the board, and $132,728 on shares at Probiotec (ASX:PBP), which he chairs.

Both were on market trades.

Jatenergy (ASX:JAT) told investors that two directors would sell 2.7 million shares after breaching a listing rules: the company issued them shares in December without getting shareholder approval.

“On 20 February 2018, Jatenergy announced that the issue of shares to directors on 11 December 2017 pursuant to the Security Purchase Plan breached listing rule 10.11,” Jatenergy said in an ASX announcement issue on February 26.

Directors Tony Crimmons and Xipeng Li had already sold, while Wilton Yao was in the process.

“To remedy the breach, as directed by the ASX, Mr Crimmins and Mr Li have sold on-market the shares issued to them in breach of listing rule 10.11,” the company’s ASX announcement said. “The profit from the sale of those shares will be donated to a registered charity.”

Mr Crimmons sold 2 million shares for $339,626, while Mr Li sold 666,666 for $145,761.

Mr Yao’s stake was 666,666.

Elsewhere, quizzing by the ASX forced tech investor Techniche (ASX:TCN) to admit that yes, there was some inadvertant trading by two directors during a blackout period.

“In answer to the question ‘Were the interests in the securities or contracts detailed above traded during a closed period where prior written clearance was required?’, the answer given was ‘No’,” Techniche told investors in an ASX announcement on February 28.

“At the Techniche Board meeting held on 22 February 2018 it was realised that these answers were in fact incorrect and that the trades took place in a closed period.

“The company notified ASX as soon as it became aware of the inadvertent breaches.”

The Techniche board closed the director trading window between June 2017 and February 2018 because it felt it had access to price-sensitive information around potential acquisitions.

In January they opened the door to director trades, only to later realise that buying and selling in February broke another rule: no trading within a month of the half-year results release.

“The Board had taken cognisance of the fact that it was not in possession of non-public price sensitive information but the fact that the trades were taking place during the closed period was overlooked,” the company said in an ASX announcement.

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