The personal profits made by directors in emergency capital-raisings are starting to look unfortunate, if not unseemly. Adam Crozier, chairman of Asos, made £101,000 profit on paper from his share purchases of the online retailer — a 50 per cent return in ten days. This was in a capital-raising where small private Asos shareholders were banned from taking part, remember. Pre-emption rights, the principle that all investors get treated equally, have been temporarily ditched because of the crisis.
Managements who bought in recent placings at Informa, WH Smith and SSP are all sitting on tidy profits, on paper. The directors of Foxtons were immediately in the money after their placings yesterday.
It could have gone the other way, of course. There are no
