Trades of Note for the week ending Aug. 3, 2025

The City’s summer torpor was evidently not for everyone last week, with a flurry of disclosures from some rather interesting quarters. While the broader market seemed content to drift, a few discerning investors were busy putting capital to work, providing a welcome distraction for those of us who prefer the intricate dance of supply and demand to the cricket or a Pimm’s on the lawn. Their movements offer a useful map of where conviction, in its various forms, currently resides.

One such pocket of conviction can be found in Eurocell PLC, the PVC building products manufacturer. Mudita Advisors, a sophisticated $1.26bn value-hunter known for identifying "mispricing patterns," continued its patient accumulation, lifting its stake to 7.2%. This marks their third purchase this year, a clear sign of a strengthening thesis. The firm, co-run by Tom Hardy and Peter Scott, appears to be taking a long-term view on the UK construction cycle. That their view is shared by the company’s own non-executive directors, who also recently acquired shares, merely adds a certain piquancy to the situation.

It is one thing for an informed fund to invest; it is quite another when the investor is a former director. Robin Chamberlayne, an expert in renewable energy with over 35 years in financial services, established a new 3.56% stake in battery developer Gelion PLC. His intimate knowledge of the firm's lithium-sulfur technology and commercial roadmap, gained during his time on the board, makes this a powerful vote of confidence. This follows a pattern of other knowledgeable individuals, John Bolitho and Thomas Dodd, previously taking positions in the firm which have since performed very well.

Rarely does one see such a neat alignment of bullish signals as that at Ibstock PLC. Lancaster Investment Management, a patient, research-driven partnership with a multi-year horizon, initiated a 3.2% position in the building materials supplier. Their move was preceded days earlier by Spanish value investor Cobas Asset Management establishing a near-identical stake. Capping it off, Ibstock’s own Chairman, Richard Akers, made a substantial purchase of £155,000 in June. The collective wisdom of two distinct institutions and the board itself appears to be betting on a cyclical recovery for the brickmaker.

Elsewhere, Brookdale International Partners, a fund managed by Boston’s Weiss Asset Management, has been practising its particular art: investment trust arbitrage. It acquired a 5.24% economic interest in Mobius Investment Trust PLC, a fund focused on emerging and frontier markets. Weiss is a specialist in this field, and their strategy is straightforward: acquire a stake in a closed-ended fund whose shares trade at a discount to the value of its underlying assets. One then waits for this discount to narrow, or perhaps prods management to help it along.

An executive buying shares is common. An outgoing CEO significantly increasing his stake just before his departure is not. George Roach, founder and departing chief of Premier African Minerals Ltd, has more than doubled his holding to 3.8%. His purchase at a fraction of a penny contrasts sharply with a sale he made at a much higher price in 2023. This suggests a profound belief that the junior miner's assets, particularly the Zulu Lithium project, are severely undervalued by the market, even as he prepares to step away from daily management.

Finally, there is conviction, and then there is doubling down. LBV Asset Management nearly doubled its holding in Sanderson Design Group PLC to 10.03%. Sanderson’s portfolio of heritage interior furnishing brands, such as Morris & Co., is its key asset. LBV’s move suggests it views this intellectual property as either a prime acquisition target for a larger player or ripe for a strategic overhaul to unlock its latent value.