Insider Trades: Directors are buying shares in these 9 ASX companies

Welcome back to the Insider Trades Series – A summary of director transactions that have taken place between 29 June and 4 July.

We typically separate the Series into large caps and small caps but there’s been almost no activity towards the big end of town in the lead up to the end of FY23. Today, we’ve merged all the data together and the only threshold is that a) the transaction must be valued at more than $10,000 and b) the share price must be more than 10 cents.

Top Director Trades

Interesting Observations

3P Learning is an educational software company that provides maths and literacy solutions for early to secondary learners. On 21 June, the company downgraded its FY23 revenue guidance to $106-108m from its previous guidance of $111-115m. While it still represents an improvement against the $97.2m in FY22, the company cited headwinds in the European region, which has been impacted by “a general economic slowdown.” Despite the slight downgrade, the company was upbeat about its FY24 outlook whilst “carrying out significant product investment in new programs.”

Directors have largely been net buyers of the company in 2023.

3P Learning 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Maggie Beer shares are down 17% year-to-date and down more than 50% in the past twelve months. The company’s sales revenue for the first half of FY23 was down 4.6% to $49.9m as rising interest rates and inflation weighed on consumer spending. A 30 May trading update guided to FY23 EBITDA between $3.5-4.5m, down from $11.3m a year ago. Perhaps this has already been priced in, as directors across the board were loading up before 30 June.

Maggie Beer 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Lark Distilling hasn’t been the same since the resignation of its CEO Geoff Bainbridge in February 2022 (a messy scandal). A June quarter update flagged that 2H23 sales are forecast to be $7.4m, down from $9.6m in the first half of FY23, reflecting the “impact of cycling some one-off sales in 4Q22, a more challenging trading environment and consumer confidence in general.” The Tasmanian whisky company presents a unique value proposition as it has 2.22 million litres of whisky under maturation (as at 31 December 2022). In FY22, the average litre of whisky sold for an average $269 a litre. So the $130m market cap company is sitting on more than $500m of whisky. But selling all of that might be easier said than done. 

Lark Distilling 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)