RE: Director Deals30 Jan 2019 13:52
Kenj, I think a bit of clarification might be worthwhile RE: director buys, considering your comment "but if two directors have each invested £100k at 132p then I think that my investment is safe, so happy to hold" is a bit misleading?
Those 'Director Buys' are share options, part of their remuneration package, that they can only utilise outside of closed periods (at least a month before the results are announced - more if they're buying or selling companies like Web Performance, Security Testing, Fox IT etc).
They have the option to take a set amount of compensation either in shares at a 'fair market price' (ie, now, around 120p), or at a heavy discount.
So they're not valuing them at the price a regular person can buy/sell them for. They're either getting them for:
Discount: 'Much less than 120p' (whatever their agreed discount was - likely to be more than 45%* or else they'd just pay the 'fair market price'), or:
Fair Market Price: 'Paying for them' at 120p without having to take the cash as salary, pay 45%* tax + NI on it, and then use the remaining ~50% to buy the shares. (ie - they're getting them for 60p in real terms).
*They're definitely in the 45% tax bracket on their salaries.