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This month’s AIM Snippet is again prompted by a Director buying shares. The company in question is property development company, Inland Plc. Inland specialises in buying brownfield property and enhancing its value through obtaining planning permissions for residential and mixed-use developments.

Like most companies in this sector Inland have had a difficult time recently due to property market conditions and their share price has suffered.

Despite the poor trading conditions Chief Executive, Stephen Wicks, must feel that the Company’s shares are cheap. Stephen purchased 125,000 shares in Inland at 9.5 pence on 28 May. This is the seventh time that the Company has announced that Stephen has bought shares over the last year. In total, over this period, Stephen has purchased over 900,000 shares at prices ranging from 6.25 to 14.5 pence. His total holding now is just over 21 million shares representing 12.98% of the issued share capital.

A glance at Inland’s interim results to 31 December 2008 may give a clue as to why the CEO is keen to buy shares at current levels. In these results, issued on 31 March 2009, the Company’s Net Asset Value (NAV) is quoted at 29.2 pence per share. This compares to the closing price on 29 May of 9.25 pence. This NAV valuation follows a review of the land carrying values at 31 December 2008 when the Company wrote down of £3.06 million.

In the Interim results the Company stated that its strategy was to dispose of small sites. This strategy is apparently on track as Inland recently announced the sales of properties on 3 sites for a total value of £2,595,000.

The company had net borrowings at 31 December 2008 of £6.79 million which is low when compared to the Company’s Stocks and Investment property valued at £59.4 million. The Market Capitalisation is £15.0 million.

Despite some recent improvements, it is difficult to see the property sector recovering for some while. However, with the blanket collapse of most of the shares in the sector there may be individual value opportunities. We leave readers to judge whether brownfield specialist Inland is such an opportunity. Certainly the CEO must think so.

We suggest that readers interested in Inland Plc take a careful look at the Interim results here and the 2008 Final results here. The investors section of Inland’s website can be accessed here.

...a clue as to why the CEO is keen to buy shares at current levels

there may be individual value opportunities

Written by Michael Crockett

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