Croda chief doubles his money

Croda International chief executive Michael Humphrey has taken up 109,300 shares via the senior executive option scheme and then sold most of them at nearly three times the price.

The options were exercised at 256p a share, so the total cost was £280,000. The sale of 80,473 shares at 747.71p each raised just over £601,000. The remaining 28,827 shares were transferred to his wife - as were the 973 shares obtained via the SAYE scheme at 384p a share.

Yorkshire-based speciality chemicals firm Croda reported its third quarter figures on 29 October. Pre-tax profit from continuing operations in the nine months to September 2009 was £75.5m, compared to £74.9m a year earlier. Net debt has been cut by £66.5m to £331.6m over the nine months to September 2009.

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This is the second time this year that Humphrey has taken up options just after results and then sold a large chunk of them.

On 30 April 2009, Humphrey exercised options over 112,440 shares at no cost. He also bought 28,567 shares under a bonus co-investment plan at 532.97p a share. Humphrey then sold 68,000 shares at 530.5p each. That raised £360,740, of which just over £152,000 was reinvested under the co-investment plan.

This means that Humphrey has made a net gain on share sales of more than £520,000 during 2009 while also increasing the number of shares that he owns. he retains a 0.24% stake in Croda.

Top Director Buys

Value: £36,448

Value: £28,000

Value: £24,800

Value: £23,525

Value: £17,639

Top Director Sells

Value: £601,697

Value: £204,900