School holidays are the perfect time for ASX company directors to have time off — particularly if they’ve worked hard during the school term. Eight directors made trades of $100,000 or more in the last week and all but one of them were mining executives.

So just like we did last school holidays, Stockhead will recap big directors trades in the recent months and how they’ve paid off. But first, last week’s trades.

Four of the trades were inter-related. Three directors of Gabon-focused zinc miner Apollo Minerals (ASX:AON) (Aja Kejriwal, Mark Pearce and Ian Middlemas) put in more than $750,000 between them as part of a $4 million capital raise. Fellow lead and zinc miner Trek Metals (ASX:TKM) raised $2.4 million and Michael Bowen put in $100,000.

While Trek has been focused on the Northern Territory, it entered into an earn-in agreement with Apollo’s Gabon project last month. If it spends $2 million in the next 3 years — it will earn a 70 per cent interest in the project. Only four out of 18 targets have been drilled and the companies have been encouraged by the mineralisation.

Hammer Metals (ASX:HMX) director Ziggy Lubienieck bought $155,453 on market. This company has base metal and gold projects in Queensland and Western Australia respectively. It received the first assay results at the latter project two weeks ago and chairman Russell Davis said he was very encouraged by the results — including 22.3 g/t of gold.

Of all the directors who could buy, there’s no better sign than your chairman. That’s what Food Revolution Group’s (ASX:FOD) Tao Li did, buying $162,445. This firm is a holding company for various juice brands including the Juice Lab and the Bucha Shop — as you may have guessed, the latter does kombucha.

Finally, Consolidated Zinc (ASX:CZL) director Stephen Copulos bought $732,178 in a rights issue. The company claimed in a presentation last month it had the highest grade zinc mine on the ASX.

The sole seller this week was Kalium Lakes (ASX:KLL) director Rudolph Van Niekerk, who sold $520,000 of his stake in the potash stock.

Code Company Director Change Date Volume $ What
FOD Food Revolution Group Tao Li Buy 4 October 3,000,000 $162,445 On market
TKM Trek Metals Michael Bowen Buy 9 October 5,000,000 $100,000 Placement
HMX Hammer Metals Ziggy Lubieniecki Buy 3-10 October 6,310,549 $155,453 On market
AON Apollo Minerals Mark Pearce Buy 11 October 5,000,000 $125,000 Rights Issue
AON Apollo Minerals Ian Middlemas Buy 11 October 12,000,000 $300,000 Rights Issue
AON Apollo Minerals Aja Kejriwal Buy 11 October 13,125,000 $328,125 Rights Issue
CZL Consolidated Zinc Stephen Copulos Buy 10 October 66,561,605 $732,177.66 Rights Issue
KLL Kalium Lakes Rudolph Van Niekerk Sell 10 October 1,040,000 $520,000 Off market
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Directors who went big during this school term

Two directors who made big buys during the recent school term have more than doubled their investment.

First, Strike Energy (ASX:STX) director John Poynton bought 1.2 million shares at 10.5 cents. Strike is now at 28.5 cents.

Strike’s well has been that successful it has been drilled deeper than any other well before, even benefitting neighbouring gas explorers yet to taste success.

Second was Race Oncology’s (ASX:RAC) John Cullity who made a 112 per cent return on his 6.6 cent buy — which is now 14 cents. The company is targeting a rare cancer with a drug which has previously been shown to work but was left behind by big pharma mergers.

Arguably the catalyst was not his buy, but that of biotech investor Daniel Tillett who invested in the company in August.

Other directors enjoyed more modest gains as PointsBet (ASX:PBH) director Brett Paton who has made a 54 per cent return on his stock.

But other punts have not gone so well, most notably Pierre-Jean Beylier’s $174,609 buy into SpeedCast (ASX:SDA) which has nearly fallen below six figures.

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort

Code Company Director Date of Buy Shares Share price Worth then Share price (1pm Fri) Worth Now % Return
STX Strike Energy John Poynton 25 July 1,200,671 $0.105 $126,045 0.28 $336,187.88 166.72%
CKA Cokal Karan Bangur 22 July 18,515,625 $0.050 $925,781 0.046 $851,718.75 -8.00%
RD1 Registry Direct Donald McLay 31 July 14,738,817 $0.015 $221,082 0.015 $221,082.26 0.00%
CLB Candy Club Chi Kan Tang 5 August 7,062,730 $0.080 $565,000 0.072 $508,516.56 -10.00%
RFF Rural Funds Trust Guy Paynter 8 August 400,000 $1.747 $698,750 1.775 $710,000.00 1.61%
RFF Rural Funds Trust David Bryant 8 August 292,500 $1.709 $499,912 1.775 $519,187.50 3.86%
SDA Speedcast Pierre-Jean Beylier 9 August 100,000 $1.746 $174,609 1.005 $100,500.00 -42.44%
RAC Race Oncology John Cullity 20 August 3,787,900 $0.066 $250,000 0.14 $530,306.00 112.12%
SPZ Smart Parking Christopher Morris 27 August 1,000,000 $0.175 $175,043 0.205 $205,000.00 17.11%
LTR Liontown Resources Timothy Goyder 30 August 2,000,000 $0.087 $174,090 0.094 $188,000.00 7.99%
PBH PointsBet Brett Paton 6 September 400,000 $2.710 $1,084,000 4.16 $1,664,000.00 53.51%
AKP Audio Pixels Frederick Bart 17 September 38,482 $12.821 $493,382 17.6 $677,283.20 37.27%
UWL Uniti Group Vaughan Bowen 20 September 2,779,556 $1.200 $3,335,467 1.33 $3,696,809.48 10.83%
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Who’s earned another holiday?

Last time we checked on the $1m buy of Hasting Technology Metals’ (ASX:HAS) Charles Lew back in May it had not gone so well.

But now he has made a small profit on the rare earths explorer. The biggest news out of the company this quarter was receiving an environmental approval for its project.

Another directors’ trade that has turned around is Robert Fyfe of Michael Hill (ASX:MHJ) who in July had lost 20 per cent on his $500,000 investment. But now he has broken even thanks to a strong quarter.

That millennial director who put $100,000 into his own company, James Graham, from Reece Pharmaceuticals (ASX:RCE), had made a 46 per cent return in July. Now his gain is 88 per cent despite a capital raise earlier this week.

Another was Barry Patterson from Dacian Gold (ASX:DCN) who made a 22 per cent gain on his company right after it fell due to a production cut. But the share price has recovered and his $980,000 buy is worth nearly $2.9 million.

Speaking of standing still, so has Dongfang Agricultural (ASX:DFM) which has been in suspension since June. Hongwei Cai bought $4.4 million just before this happened.

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort

Code Company Director Date of Buy Shares Share price Worth then Share price (1pm Fri) Worth Now % Return
DCN Dacian Gold Barry Patterson 6 June 2,000,000 $0.48 $979,615 1.445 $2,890,000.00 195.01%
UWL Uniti Wireless Vaughan Bowen 13 March $3,187,726.00 0.3 $951,560.62 1.33 $4,239,675.58 345.55%
DFM Dongfang Agricultural Hongwei Cai May 24 5,000,000 0.845 $4,225,000 0.83 $4,150,000.00 -1.78%
HAS Hastings Technology Metals Charles Lew May 23 5,900,000 0.17 $1,000,000 0.175 $1,032,500.00 3.25%
ONE Oneview Healthcare James Fittler May 16 1,200,000 0.25 $300,000 0.275 $330,000.00 10.00%
AGS Alliance Resources Ian Gandel May 3 16,478,719 0.1 $1,600,000 0.14 $2,307,020.66 44.19%
HCH Hot Chili Murray Black March 27 50,952,326 0.01 $509,523 0.038 $1,936,188.39 280.00%
MHJ Michael Hill Robert Fyfe March 20 763,640 0.66 $502,621 0.665 $507,820.60 1.03%
EDE Eden Innovations Douglas & Gregory Solomon March 8 7,600,000 0.052 $409,738 0.052 $395,200.00 -3.55%
RCE Reece Pharmaceuticals James Graham March 7 650,000 0.15 $100,460 0.29 $188,500.00 87.64%
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