Here's the deal: You may read the information on the site for free. As and when I have the time I'll add new articles, taking into account any questions which have been asked. For legal reasons, please do not consider anything on this site to be advice - the only free investment advice is to apply your own mind. If you want to request that an article be written, then email me. I have limited time available, and will prioritise the work accordingly, so please be patient. Email me at invest@freeinvestmentadvice.org.

5 Dec 2013. By now you should have received an email from me which explains why I keep a close eye on executive director transactions in shares. Please do not distribute that email to any directors - study the contents of that email, then burn and detroy. I wont send this info every day, but thought I'd send it today to show you how my thoughts processes work. The only action on the 5th December 2013 which interested me was:

I've left out all the other transactions as they didn't give a strong enough "signal" (e.g. anything related to share option schemes, or selling of shares I don't own).

As you can see, this is the lazy man's way of investing. It only takes 5 minutes a day. Will I miss some opportunities? Yes! A lot, and I'll get a lot wrong too. But it comforts me immensely to know that I'm investing/disinvesting alongside the people who know the most about the business.

Silverbridge

Silverbridge offer clients in the insurance industry solutions that enable and improve business processes, by implementing their system platforms & customising them to meet client needs. After being implemented their software is rented to customers on a usage basis. Exergy is their flagship platform that enables core back office policy admin in the life insurance industry.

Robert Emslie is a chartered accountant and independent Chairman of Silverbridge. Although R10,500 is a piffling amount, he also bought some R80,000 worth of shares at R0.80 per share on the 13th November 2013. When considered together, it is a gently bullish move, and means that the share deserves closer attention.

On the 6th November RECM sold some of their holdings and had a stake of about 5% of the company left. I rate RECM highly, so see this as a negative signal.

The main problem I encountered in my initial analysis of the company is that I don't have a good feel for how well embedded Silverbridge's systems are in the life insurers, and therefore how easy it is for them to be replaced. They probably need to constantly be investing in new technology - this not only costs capex, but also puts them at risk of somebody smarter creating a better system (or even that there already are such systems, but just not being marketed well enough). I cannot pin fair value down enough, so this one goes into the "too difficult" draw, and I'm therefore not buying.

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