James Crean's chairman and chief executive, Mr Ray McLoughlin, has become the biggest shareholder in the group with a stake of 10.1 per cent after buying more than one million shares over the past week for £836,347 (#1.06 million).

This is the second time in the space of a month that Mr McLoughlin has bought one million Crean shares. In late May, he bought one million shares for £870,000 (#1.1 million) and has now spent over £1.7 million on Crean shares since he first said last November that directors would buy shares as an expression of their confidence in the group.

Mr McLoughlin's share purchases at prices between #1 and #1.10 have, however, failed to give the Crean share price any stimulus and it was unchanged on #1.10 (£0.87) yesterday.