Qualye Munro director buys 3.3 per cent stake ahead of de-listing

Glen Lewy, a Non-Executive Director of corporate financial advisory firm Qualye Munro bought a big stake in the company ahead of its proposed de-listing from AIM.Qualye Munro, which first debuted on the London Stock Exchange in 1993, set out proposals last week to cancel the trading of its shares on AIM in conjunction with a tender offer and the adoption of new management incentivisation arrangements. The company, whose 400 shareholders are mainly small private investors, pointed out that the average number of trades per day in the company over the last year was just 0.5 and there is little liquidity in the stock.The firm said that the costs of maintaining an AIM listing are £140,000 annually and a lot of management time is being taken up by "publicly quoted company matters" such as the production of lengthy financial reports.Meanwhile, it believes that a new proposed incentive plan for senior management - which involves them purchasing shares in the business - is not practicable within a publicly quoted firm.In connection with the proposals, Lewy purchased 150,000 shares in the firm at a price of 563p each from the firm's employee benefit trust (EBT), East of Scotland Investments. The £844,500 transaction gave him a 3.29% stake in the company, reducing the EBT's interest to just 0.35%.Qualye Munro said the shares purchase by Lewy were part of the shares owned by the EBT which gave an irrevocable undertaking to vote in favour of all the resolutions announced last week and not to sell the shares in the tender offer."Lewy intends to vote the acquired shares in favour of all of the resolutions to be proposed at the company's general meeting on August 1st 2013 and does not intend to tender the shares in the tender offer," the firm said.Top Director BuysQuayle Munro Holdings (QYM) Director name: Mr Glen LewyAmount purchased: 150,000 @ 563.00p Value: £844,500GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Director name: Dr Moncef SlaouiAmount purchased: 1,222 @ 1,721.99p Value: £21,043GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Director name: Sir Sir Andrew P WittyAmount purchased: 1,238 @ 1,753.00p Value: £21,702Oxford Biomedica (OXB) Director name: Mr Martin Diggle Amount purchased: 1,000,000 @ 1.50p Value: £15,000Matchtech Group (MTEC) Director name: Mr Adrian GunnAmount purchased: 3,494 @ 341.00p Value: £11,915BC