Share Watch: Ensor and Norcros directors buy

A DIRECTOR at Ensor Holdings, the Manchester building products group, has spent nearly £7,000 on shares in the business.

Roger Harrison bought 75,000 shares at 9p each at a cost of £6,750. The trade takes his holding to 85,000 shares, or 0.3% of the company.

Ensor shares reached a high this year of 34p but have lost value and now stand at 8.7p. Earlier this month the business said conditions were “very difficult” but most of its divisions had performed well in the six months to September 30.

The company was pushed into an interim loss by problems associated with the move of part of its timber and fencing firm, Hawkins-Salmon, from Northamptonshire to Cheshire.

In the six months like-for-like sales at Ensor dropped 10% to £14.1m and the group made an operating loss of £198,000 compared with a £1.14m profit last time. After stripping out losses at Hawkins-Salmon sales dropped just 1%.

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DIRECTORS at the Wilmslow tile and shower manufacturer Norcros have continued to buy shares in the business.

Chief executive Joe Matthews spent £26,250 on 525,000 shares at 5p each taking his holding to 2.7%. Susan Kelsall, the wife of finance director Nick Kelsall bought 70,000 shares at a price of 5p.

Mr Matthews and Mrs Kelsall bought large amounts of shares last month after Jersey-based Lifestyle Investments PVT bought 3.6 million shares, taking its holding to just over 29%, within a whisker 30% threshold at which an investor must make an offer.