The sellers

Mainstream (ASX:MAI) founders Byram Johnston and Martin Smith — chairman and chief respectively — each pocketed $650,000 after selling 1 million shares to a new strategic investor.

They let 1.8 per cent of the company go in order to increase the free float of shares on the market and improve liquidity in the money manager.

However, they still own 39.4 per cent of the company.

Want to see what a real sell-down looks like? Netlinkz (ASX:NET) chairman and chief executive James Tsiolis sold 66 per cent of his holding last week: 3.5 million shares for about $143,000.

Mr Tsiolis joined the board in 2015 and became chairman and interim chief the following year.

Netlinkz relisted in August last year after an epic eight-month ASX suspension with the news that five China Telecom customers would buy between 20 and 200 licences for its “cloud networking solution”.

But the company has still struggled to gets its corporate house in order this year.

It was forced to revise its December quarter results and wa suspended again for a month for being late with a half-year report.

Netlinkz said at the start of the year it expected negative cash flows for the foreseeable future, but reported in April that it made $31,241 from Chinese customers this quarter.

That tax issue reared its head again last week at Global Geosciences (ASX:GSC).

Boss Bernard Rowe sold 1.2 million shares for $480,000 to director Alan Davies.

He had to raise some money to pay for a tax liability that came with 6 million shares issued from performance rights.

The buyers

Melbourne entrepreneur Geoffrey Pearce has been on a spending spree at three companies this year, shelling out a total of $2.2 million.

Mr Pearce is a director of McPherson’s (ASX:MCP) and Cann Group (ASX:CAN) and has chaired Probiotec (ASX:PBP) since 2016.

After a quiet 2017 he has been regularly topping up his holdings in thje companies this year. He made his first purchase as a director of Probiotec in December.

Since he’s become a director, Mr Pearce has spent just over $1 million on Cann shares, bringing his shareholding to 1.6 million.

He’s spent a total of $565,000 on Probiotec shares and now owns 3.2 million.

While he didn’t make a trade in McPherson’s last week, Mr Pearce spent $615,000 this year on 461,245 shares, bringing the total he controls to just over 500,000.

Orinoco Gold (ASX:OGX) chair Joseph Pinto has made some clever trades recently.

Over the past two weeks Mr Pinto first sold 707,046 shares, making just over $62,000. Then he bought the same number back in two lots a week later, paying just over $53,000.

By the end of last week Mr Pinto still owned almost 100 million shares in Orinoco — but was $9,000 richer.

Where Mr Pinto traded for cold, hard cash, Swift Networks (ASX:SW1) directors made a paper profit on some 25c options.

Gorgeously named chairman Carlyle Cyril Clump spent $120,000 converting his options while CFO Paul Doropoulos spent $20,000.

On the day they converted Swift shares were worth 35c — Mr Clump made a paper profit of $35,000 and Mr Doropoulos made $8,000.

Small parcels

The smallest trade among ASX small cap directors this week was a parcel of shares worth just $118.80.

Your average punter can only trade sums $500 and up, but Kairiki Energy (ASX:KIK) chairman Campbell Welch went off-market and bought 19,800 shares.

It’s his third trade this year, the biggest being a $20,000 sell-off in March.

Mr Welch has been on the board of the oil and gas shell since 2016 when it was last suspended from the ASX.

It’s trying, unsuccessfully so far, to be a reverse takeover target.

Last year it hoped to hook up with a bio-pallets maker and in 2016 it was romancing Bowen Coking Coal (ASX:BCB) — which instead backdoor-listed via Cabral Resources.