Haha quite the contrary, the only reason companies used to do it...

Haha quite the contrary, the only reason companies used to do it was in the past when brokerage was calculated on the number of shares bought (as is still the case on some US exchanges), brokers were keen to have the price as low as possible with the number of shares as high as possible to keep the money rolling in.

If the director's have a keener interest in share price promotion rather than spending time making sure the business is run correctly (and the lack of discipline when it comes to spending shareholder money) then I'm happy to stay on the sideline. That is not to say the business is poorly run but they should be making more effective use of their time.