Bonus for Bankers Petroleum directors

For the second January running Bankers Petroleum directors have taken advantage of the strong share price to sell shares.

The Canada-based oil and gas company has production assets in Albania. Bankers is still one of the largest ten companies on AIM but it has been overtaken by other companies in the past year.

Chairman and co-founder Robert Cross has sold 1m shares at the equivalent of 552.1p a share, which raised £5.52m. Cross was not one of the directors that sold last January but he has already raised more than £11.6m from share disposals in the past 12 months. Cross still owns 3.22m shares.

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Abby Badwi has raised £2.76m from the sale of 500,000 shares to add to the £1.5m raised last January.

Ian McMurtrie has raised £2.67m on top of the £1.53m secured in January 2009.

Douglas Urch generated £1.49m from 270,000 shares, having raised a similar amount last January.

Phil Knoll raised £554,000 from the sale of 100,000 shares at 554p each.

The sale prices of the shares were around 45% higher than one year before. The directors, other than Cross, sold all or the vast majority of the shares from options they exercised.

Bankers said that fourth quarter oil production rose by 6% to 10,424 barrels of oil per day.

Top Director Buys

Marwyn Value Investors Ltd. (MVI) Director name: Mr Eitan MilgramAmount purchased: 175,000 @ 120.00p Value: £210,000

Imaginatik (IMTK) Director name: Mr Matthew Jonathan CooperAmount purchased: 3,000,000 @ 1.50p Value: £45,000

Standard Life European Private Equity Trust (SEP) Director name: Mr Jonathan Taylor Amount purchased: 30,000 @ 142.50p Value: £42,750

Top Director Sells

Bankers Petroleum Ltd. (BNK) Director name: Mr Robert M D CrossAmount sold: 1,000,000 @ 552.10p Value: £5,521,000

Bankers Petroleum Ltd. (BNK) Director name: Mr Abdel (Abby) F BadwiAmount sold: 500,000 @ 552.10p Value: £2,760,500

Bankers Petroleum Ltd. (BNK) Director name: Mr Ian McMurtrieAmount sold: 480,000 @ 556.75p Value: £2,672,400

Bankers Petroleum Ltd. (BNK) Director name: Mr Douglas C UrchAmount sold: 270,000 @ 552.10p Value: £1,490,670

Bankers Petroleum Ltd. (BNK) Director name: Mr Phil KnollAmount sold: 100,000 @ 554.01p Value: £554,010