After joining the ASX board on January 1, Rob Woods bought $245,000 in stock last week (Picture: Getty)
Directors Trades: This week’s big traders included a director from the ASX itself
Director Trades
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It’s not often we see directors of the ASX (ASX:ASX) itself make big purchases of stock but last week we did.
So while we normally only cover small caps we thought we’d make an exception this week for the exchange they call home.
Former Challenger executive Rob Woods joined the bourse’s board on January 1. Only a week after the ASX announced solid half-yearly results he bought ASX shares for the first time – $245,850 worth to be exact.
Because its share price is over $80 a pop, that investment only got him 3,000 shares.
| Code | Company | Director | Change | Date | Volume | $ | What |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EOF | Ecofibre | Bart Lambert | Sell | 19 February | 2,000,000 | $5,480,000 | Off market |
| CGL | Citadel Group | Mark McConnell | Buy | 19 February | 104,600 | $499,162 | On market |
| TIG | Tigers Realm Coal | Owen Hegarty | Buy | 17 February | 30,000,000 | $300,000 | Rights Issue |
| ASX | ASX | Rob Woods | Buy | 19 February | 3,000 | $245,000 | On market |
Also buying into the ASX was Peter Nash, who already owned 1,000 shares but bought another 1,000 at a cost of $81,940. Nash also sits on the boards of Westpac and John Lyng, and spent 24 years as a partner at KPMG.
READ MORE: Corporate: The ASX is investing in its technology; but still made a $250m half-yearly profit
Moving on to smaller caps…
Three other directors made trades over $100,000 last week. One was Owen Hegarty, from Tigers Realm Coal (ASX:TIG), who snapped up $300,000.
Tigers Realm Coal is one of the few small caps involved in Siberian coking coal and recently completed a large capital raise of nearly $60m. Despite the fierce winters in Siberia, it managed to mine 71,000t in January.
Also completing a capital raising is software company Citadel Group (ASX:CGL). But director Mark McConnell opted to buy on market instead — picking up $499,162 worth of shares.
The company released its half-yearly results only a few days before and while revenues were up 25 per cent, its net profit before tax was down by the same margin.
Finally Barry Lambert from hemp company Ecofibre (ASX:EOF) sold $5.48m worth of shares. These were owned by his super fund and apparently had to be sold “to meet diversification requirements for the fund”. But he still owns 72 million shares, worth over $200m at the current market price.
Ecofibre has nearly tripled since it listed last March, but more recent cannabis IPOs have been less successful with the last three companies in a row dropping on debut and failing to recover.
