Who’s buying

One of last biggest recent injections of director funds into a stock came from five directors of Malaysia-based real estate developer United Overseas Australia (ASX:UOS).

The five collectively spent $46.1 million acquiring shares under United Overseas Australia’s dividend reinvestment plan.

Under a dividend reinvestment plan, instead of receiving cash dividend payments, the investor’s dividends are directly reinvested back into shares.

The largest contribution was made by Mr Chong Soon Kong, who reinvested $24.8 million of the cash he would have received in dividends.

Continuing a recent buying spree, Hamish Corlett – a director of sleep apnoea device maker SomnoMed (ASX:SOM) – stumped another $2.3 million to bulk up his stock portfolio.

It was the largest on-market buy for the week.

This comes a week after Mr Corlett paid out $2.4 million to acquire around 1.1 million extra shares on-market.

Three directors of lithium and cobalt explorer MetalsTech (ASX:MTC) made on-market buys totalling $111,938.

Mark Johnson and Ilana Atlas, who are non-executive directors of retail technology network developer OneMarket (ASX:OMN), spent $55,144 and $66,000 respectively buying more shares on-market.

Meanwhile, there were quite a number of directors participating in rights issues.

Ian Middlemas, chairman of emerging coal producer Paringa Resources (ASX:PNL), picked up $733,333 worth of shares in the company’s recent $11 million entitlement offer.

Mr Middlemass acted as a sub-underwriter for the offer.

Deputy chairman Todd Hannigan and director Thomas Todd also picked up shares in the offer – injecting $624,860 and $361,589 respectively into Paringa.

Atrum Coal (ASX:ATU) director Charles Fear bought another 1.35 million shares in the company for $135,000 as part of a recent placement.

Managing director Max Wang also participated in the placement – contributing $55,000 to acquire a further 550,000 shares.

Who’s selling

Gazal (ASX:GZL) director Craig Kimberley made the biggest sale of the week, off-loading $1.9 million worth of shares in the Australian fashionista.

Meanwhile, two directors of lithium explorer Novo Litio (ASX:NLI) sold off shares to fund a tax liability arising from the vesting of performance shares during the 2016-17 financial year.

Francis Wedin banked $225,000 from the sale of 5 million shares while Dudley Kingsnorth earned $15,750 from selling 350,000 shares.

Novo reassured investors that both directors “have no intentions to sell any further shares”.

Who’s exercising options

Nearing the end of the financial year there were a lot of directors exercising options, while others had to sell to help settle tax liabilities.

The biggest conversion of options for the week was done by a director of Jumbo Interactive (ASX:JIN) – an internet lottery business with operations in Australia and Germany.

CEO Mike Veverka dropped a cool $1 million on converting 250,000 options to shares.

The managing director of gold producer Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS), Mark Zeptner, spent $448,035 on turning his options into 1.5 million shares.