Insider Trades: A big sell by lithium miner CFO in a resource-heavy (but quiet) week

Welcome back to the Insider Trades series, a summary of director transactions – those on-market trades valued above $10,000 – between 14 July and 20 July 2023.

It was rather quiet in this corner of the market – probably because of the rapidly approaching end-of-quarter and full-year trading blackout that’s enforced each reporting season.

So, while we often split this data out into two articles, one focused on large caps and the other on smalls, we’ve combined them this time.

Top insider trades

Sayona Mining (ASX: SYA)

Market cap: $1.53 billion

The $1.68 million “sell” by Sayona Mining’s Paul Crawford was the week’s biggest director transaction. Crawford is chief financial officer of the lithium producer, which has projects in Quebec, Canada, and Western Australia. The miner produced its first lithium in March and is North America’s only major hard rock producer, according to the firm’s latest investor presentation.

This is Crawford’s first sale, at least since before 1 June 2022, having been a net buyer, scooping up more than $720,000 of the stock since then. His last prior purchase of the stock was in mid-December.

Multiple insider transactions

There were only three instances of multiple transactions from within the same company last week, and two of these were small- or micro-cap resource plays.

Galan Lithium (ASX: GLN)

Market cap: $256 million

The next-biggest transaction value during the week was at another lithium miner, but Galan remains in the exploration phase. Its lithium brine projects, HMW and Canedlas, are in Argentina, alongside Greenbushes South in Western Australia – just a few kilometres from the Tier 1 Greenbushes Lithium Mine.

Juan Pablo de la Vega, Galan’s managing director, purchased more than $100,000 worth of his own stock in two separate transactions on 14 July.

Polymetals Resources (ASX: POL)

Market cap: $47.57 million

Two company insiders from the gold explorer, David Sproule and Peter Constable, bought the stock during the period in question. Sproule, executive chairman of the company – whose two operations are based in Guinea, West Africa – bought $46,840 worth of scrip on 20 July.

A Polymetals non-executive director, Alistair Barton, also scooped up a parcel of shares valued at $14,232.

Kinatico (ASX: KYP)

Market cap: $52.1 million

One of the few non-resource companies in the latest list, technology micro-cap Kinatico (formerly CV Check) provides screening and verification services in multiple countries, with Australia and New Zealand its core markets currently.

Non-executive director George Cameron-Dow sold $22,000 worth of the company’s stock on 20 July, and on the same day bought back a tranche valued at $29,272.

This article was first published on Marketindex.com.au on Monday 31 July 2023.