Bruno Angelici, a non-executive director of Smiths Group, has bought his first shares in the company less than a week after it was revealed that the technology supplier had rejected an approach for its medical division.
Angelici paid 1392p a share for the 2,000 shares he acquired - a total outlay of nearly £28,000. The share price closed at 1283p on 13 January - the day before the approach was revealed.
Angelici joined the Smiths board in July 2010. The French man is a former executive of AstraZeneca and he was received into the Legion d'honneur in December 2009.
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Smiths rejected a £2.45bn approach for its biggest division Smiths Medical. It said it had carefully considered the approach, which came from the private equity group Apax according to media reports, concluding that continuing discussions on the basis of a sale at that level would not be in shareholders' best interests.
Smiths Medical accounted for about 31% of the company's sales last year.
Research company Edison Investment, however, expects Smiths to be broken up at some point. "We feel that it is only a matter of time before a satisfactory bid will kick-start the process," Edison said.
Smiths is expected to announce its interim results on 23 March.
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