Wincanton director makes first purchase

Non-executive director Paul Venables has bought shares in logistics and warehousing business Wincanton.

The purchase of 25,000 shares was made at 224.77p a share. The total cost was £56,192. This is the first purchase of shares by Venables since he joined the Wincanton board in September 2009. He did not previously own any shares.

Venables is finance director of Hays and he previously worked for DHL Logistics.

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Interim figures were reported last November and were broadly in line with expectations. A 10% dip in revenues to £1.08bn in the six months to September 2009 was mainly down to the loss of Woolworths business and weak German volumes. This also led to a 15% decline in operating profit to £26m.

The Wincanton share price declined after the interim figures were reported but it has been recovering since Christmas.

Some analysts are concerned about the pension deficit. Daniel Stewart believes that this could reach £160m gross by the end of March 2010. This is due to a fall in bond yields.

Net debt is expected to reach around £190m by the end of March 2010.

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