Director dealings: ServicePower top brass show confidence as shares hit 2.5p

ServicePower Technologies's chairman and chief executive officer both snaffled shares in the company as the mobile workforce management software provider's shares reached their lowest level since the financial crisis.

Non-executive chairman Hugh Fitzwilliam-Lay, who has been a director since September 2007, bought 661,731 shares and CEO Marne Martin, who joined at the start of 2013, bought 327,354.

Both pocketed the shares at a price of 2.5p apiece, with Fitzwilliam-Lay spending more than £16,500 and Martin almost £8,200.

As a result of the transactions, Fitzwilliam-Lay has 10.2m shares, or 4.47% of the total issued, while Martin has just 389,395, or 0.17%, the pair both having made a small purchase of 62,041 shares each last Monday.

Last week, the AIM-listed group announced it had secured three new, multi-year contracts with an aggregate value of around $1m, of two were new three-year contracts and the other an extension.

Although the company revealed another annual loss last month, Martin stated her confidence that the company was positioned for a strong performance in 2016 and beyond, with recent contract wins proving its ability to win new customers, helped by the recent validation by Gartner of its field management platform.

A cost-reduction programme is underway which she expects to deliver annualised cost savings of £0.7m in the current year rising to £1m a year afterwards through reductions in SGA and marketing expenditure.

Combined with a forecast increase in revenue to £13.5m, analysts feel it should be enough see the company return to a positive operating profit.

Top Director Buys

Servicepower Technologies (SVR)
Director name: Fitzwilliam-Lay,Hugh
Amount purchased: 661,731 @ 2.50p
Value: £16,543.28

Atlantis Japan Growth Fund Ltd. (AJG)
Director name: Smith,Andrew Martin
Amount purchased: 7,250 @ 135.30p
Value: £9,809.25

Servicepower Technologies (SVR)
Director name: Fitzwilliam-Lay,Hugh
Amount purchased: 327,354 @ 2.50p
Value: £8,183.85