Moore digs in for more shares in Congo iron ore explorer

The former federal government cabinet minister and one-time stockbroker had 333,334 shares when he joined the board and rounded that up to 500,000 shares on Thursday when he picked up shares at slightly less than 26? each.

African Iron chairman Ian Burston hailed the appointment saying that Moore had had a distinguished political career and that the board's independence had been strengthened and that Moore provided "additional capital market and commercial skill sets".

The company is exploring and assessing its 80 per cent-owned Mayoko iron ore project in the Republic of Congo.

This week, the company announced an 80 per cent-plus increase in the aggregate exploration target size of the project, now estimated at 1.6-2.6 billion tonnes of iron ore mineralisation with a grade range of 30 to 65 per cent iron.

Moore is a bit ahead of the game at this early stage as the shares firmed 12 per cent yesterday, to 28?, valuing the group at about $132 million.

Meanwhile, the overall scorecard read $6 million to $1.9 million in favour of buyers, but it was mostly obscure stocks that populated the directors' table.

Micro caps were the order of the day, with few of those in the buying list having a share price of more than 50?, and dealing in some had an end-of-financial-year flavour.

Among directors doing a bit of selling was James Spenceley of Vocus Communications.

The chief of the data network outfit exercised 166,666 options at 50? apiece and sold 141,666 shares at about $2.42 each by the look of it a very sweet transaction indeed.

Embraced by some members of the small-cap set, Vocus scrip has been of the soar away variety a year ago it was fetching 62? and a couple of months ago it hit $3.05.

Now at $2.38, the group is valued at $144 million, about 39 times interim earnings of $3.7 million.

Elsewhere among stocks on the improve was Algae.Tec which says it has a technology designed to grow algae on an industrial scale and produce biofuels.

Peter Hatfull and Roger Stroud paid 30?-32? last week yesterday the shares firmed 11 per cent to 40?.