Directors Trades: Over two dozen directors made $100k+ trades last week

It is common for directors to be prohibited from trading their company’s shares ahead of an AGM, and with last week marking the end of the AGM season it kicked off a frenzied trading spree.

With restrictions lifted, 25 directors made trades worth over $100,000, with 15 buying and 10 selling.

Four of the sellers were from PainChek (ASX:PCK), which is one of 2019’s ASX success stories after rising from below 4c in early April to above 20c now.

The trigger for its staggering run was a $5m funding package from the Morrison government.

Four directors sold over $9m between them to fund tax bills as a result of exercising options. But they sold to institutional shareholders (as other company directors have done) and put a 12-month escrow on their new shares.

Also selling after exercising options was Spirit Telecom’s (ASX:ST1) Terence Gray, who parted with $281,250 off market but exercised $237,500 worth of options only a few days earlier.

Like Uniti (ASX:UWL), Spirit is vying to be an alternative to the NBN but the success of Uniti has thus far eluded Spirit. But ironically, Uniti made a takeover bid earlier this year and it was rejected.

Australian Financial Group’s (ASX:AFG) Malcolm Watkins and Brett McKeon sold $12.5m and $15m respectively. The reason? To assist in diversifying their portfolios. Again the shares were sold to institutional investors.

FIFO service provider Alliance Aviation’s (ASX:AQZ) Stephen Padgett sold $637,500. This came only a handful of days after he bought nearly the same amount in a dividend investment program.

Buyers

You’d probably know Victor Previn as the founder and chairman of eye laser company Ellex (ASX:ELX). But he recently joined the board of South Australian copper-gold explorer Havilah Resources (ASX:HAV). Last week he bought $150,000 in Havilah.

Also in the mining space, Michael Elliot from graphite play Walkabout Resources (ASX:WKT) bought $230,000 on market. And Asimwe Kabunga of bauxite play Lindian Resources (ASX:LIN) bought $200,000 worth of shares.

PointsBet (ASX:PBH) directors have been active buyers and one of them went in again this week. Brett Paton bought over $3m and owns over 7 per cent of the company.

Donald Haller from sustainable packaging play Secos (ASX:SES) bought just over $250,000 worth of stock. After several months of stagnation, Secos shares have had a better few months climbing from 3c in April (when he last bought stock) to 9c last week.

The biggest buyer of all was Denis Wagner of Wagners (ASX:WGN). He co-founded the Queensland construction provider and put $22m into the company’s recent rights’ issue.