IN A vote of confidence for the company, insiders continued to pick up more shares in Inter-Roller Engineering on the open market.

Filings with the Singapore Exchange show that chairman Lim Yong Wah bought 50,000 Inter-Roller shares at 75 cents apiece on Tuesday, raising his direct interest to 3.38 per cent from 3.31 per cent.

At the same time, former chief executive Yap Lem paid 37 cents apiece for 200,000 'nil-paid rights'. Each nil-paid right entitles him to subscribe to one new Inter-Roller share at 36 cents.

Mr Yap, who is a director of the company, had also bought 160,000 shares at an average price of 77.9 cents each on the open market last week. The purchases have raised his deemed interest to 18.37 per cent from 18.03 per cent.

Dealers said the purchases of both men were signs of support for managing director Lim Yee Min, who became chief executive of Inter-Roller on Jan 1.

Their purchases should also soothe any lingering concerns caused by United Overseas Bank paring down its Inter-Roller stake to 4.9 per cent from 5.96 per cent about three weeks ago.

DBS Vickers, keeping its buy call on the stock in November, noted that Inter-Roller's earnings are growing at a much faster pace in percentage terms, than its revenues.

Inter-Roller yesterday closed 0.5 cent lower at 74.5 cents on a volume of just 213,000 shares. - GOH ENG YEOW.

《The Straits Times》