SHARES in business services company office2office dipped sharply this month after it warned of a fall in contract revenues.
Although the group was seeing overall sales up on the same period last year, it had not been able to compensate for the difficult trading in the contract office supplies market.
The group says it now expects to report underlying profit before income tax in the range of £6.3 million and £6.7m for the year to the end of December.
Borrowings are expected to be reported at an only slightly higher level than the previous year.
Following the update, chief executive Simon Moate went into the market to increase his stake.
He purchased 10,000 shares at 100p each and now holds 206,832 shares.
• Two directors at Mediterranean Oil & Gas have upped their holdings.
William Higgs, chief executive, purchased 200,000 shares at 10.15p each.
Chairman Keith Henry purchased 250,000 shares at 10.22p each.
• Michael Sharp, chief executive of Debenhams, bought 100,000 shares after the company reported record sales in December.He bought the shares at 109.5p each. The group said that sales at stores open more than a year rose 5 per cent in the five weeks to 5 January, with same-floorspace sales over a longer 18-week period up 2.9 per cent. However, Sharp cautioned that he didn’t anticipate a significant change in consumer confidence in the remainder of the year.
• Nick Perrin, finance director at veterinary science group CVS, has purchased 3,000 shares at 171p each.
It was his first purchase of shares in the company.
• Steven Freudmann, non-executive chairman of investment holding company Alpha Prospects, has bought 20,000 shares at 2.5p. He now holds around 9.4 million shares in the group.
• Roger Liddell, a non-executive director of mining group African Minerals, has bought 115,000 shares at 336.51p each. The company recently said it was making good progress on its projects.