Gordon Edward Haslam, senior non-executive director of gold miner Centamin plc, bought an extra 52,056 shares in the company whose main producing asset is Egypt's Marsa Alam mine, the company announced on Wednesday.

The transaction serves as a "positive sign" after Centamin announced a surge in its gold production output in the second quarter of 2012, investment bank Beltone Financial said in a note on Thursday.

Centamin posted a 24 per cent drop in second-quarter profits, despite a growth in production, mainly driven by higher costs and lower sales. It maintained its production forecast for 2012, despite two stoppages caused by labour unrest.

This latest transaction takes Haslam's shareholding to 102,056 shares, just 0.009 per cent of total issued ordinary shares in Centamin.

The ticker symbol for Centamin's ordinary shares is CEY on the London Stock Exchange and CEE on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

It is currently trading at 0.77 British pounds on the LSE.