TOM Clark, the executive
chairman of Semple Cochrane has realised more than #1.2m from the sale of shares to institutional investors keen to buy into his
Paisley-based support services company.
The transaction follows hefty share sales to institutional investors by two other founder directors of Semple Cochrane.
Executive director John McKee realised #932,000 at the end of March and former deputy managing director Ian McKendrick cashed in #450,000 worth of shares in late April.
McKendrick has since left the board of Semple Cochrane, which does everything from designing CCTV systems for town centres to repairing ships and renewing
railway signalling systems.
Semple Cochrane shares have nearly trebled in value over the past two years from a placing price of 180p prior to flotation at the end of 1996, riding on a wave of City confidence in the support services sector.
They closed down 9p at 517.5p yesterday in a falling market.
Clark and his family sold 236,000 shares at 520p to satisfy demand for Semple Cochrane paper from three unidentified institutional investors who
wanted to buy into the company.
But despite offloading a 2.7% stake in the company, he continues to hold 9.6% of the
equity.
Together, Clark, McKendrick and McKee, who co-founded Semple Cochrane in 1980, still control nearly 30% of the
company's shares.
Clark said yesterday he was not aware of any plans for further large sales by directors, but he did not rule out the possibility.
Steve Williams, an analyst with house stockbroker Williams de Broe, said there was strong institutional demand for shares in support services companies such as Semple Cochrane, Serco and Capita.
All those businesses are perceived as guaranteed winners in an economy where more large groups such as Railtrack are outsourcing more of their peripheral operations to contractors. The sector is viewed as being almost recession proof so companies identified with it command high price earnings ratios of up to 50 times prospective earnings, he noted.
Even if the three co-founders of Semple Cochrane retain their remaining shares for the time being, institutions may soon be able to pick up more paper soon in a placing to help finance acquisitions.
Clark said Semple Cochrane was keen to make further purchases in the UK to expand its operations in marine and rail engineering, road safety and
security.
Any such purchases would probably be financed, at least in part by a share placing, he added.
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