Asos’ finance chief is investing more than £20,000 as higher losses trigger a sell-off

Asos’ chief financial officer bought more than £20,000 worth of the company’s shares on Tuesday as its share price plummeted.

Stock exchange filings show that Dave Murray, who joined the company in April after previously holding senior roles at Amazon and Sainsbury’s, bought 5,800 Asos shares for around £3.46 each, reflecting a total investment of around £20,068.

Asos shares fell 7.8 percent at market close yesterday as investors reacted to mounting losses.

They continued their decline on Wednesday, falling 1.4 percent to 346.6p.

Directors of publicly traded companies are required to disclose personal transactions in their companies, and these types of insider deals are considered a barometer of a company’s prospects.

This is Murray’s first purchase of Asos shares, while separate filings show he is the first insider to buy shares since non-executive director William Barker in early May.

Barker’s California-based investment firm Camelot Capital Partners owns 17,613,381 shares in Asos.

Asos shares have fallen around 11 per cent since the start of the year to 346.4p, and are 94 per cent below their peak in April 2021, when lockdown conditions boosted sales.

The fast fashion retailer has been fighting for a turnaround for two years after a slump in demand following the Covid-19 crisis led to weaker sales and mountains of excess inventory.

The rise of Chinese fast fashion giant Shein hasn’t helped matters.

Data from Stockopedia shows that analysts are largely neutral on Asos’s prospects, but brokers appear to think Asos’s shares remain undervalued.

UBS maintains a 12-month price target of 440 pence, around 27 percent higher than current value, while Peel Hunt analysts are more conservative with a price target of 375 pence.

Peel Hunt said on Tuesday: ‘We expect the share price to be linked to operational KPIs, namely frequency, active business and ultimately revenue growth.

“It’s reassuring to see that management has no intention of returning to the performance-oriented, discount-based proposition of the past, which did not view Black Friday as the massive acquisition vehicle that it was.”