This week the activist investor – which has been highly critical of De La Rue’s former chairman and strategy during a torrid period for the PLC – increased its shareholding in the security printer from 10% to 15.2%.

Posting on Twitter, director Richard Bernstein said: “We've increased our shareholding in De La Rue from 10% to 15.2%.

“With a market cap of less than £100 million, the shares trade on just 0.3 times next year's revenues and a PE of 7. However, we think the strategic value is far higher.”

De La Rue announced its year-end results last week but is yet to publish its annual report for the 2023 financial year.

In its 2022 annual report, the largest shareholder was Schroders with a 15.03% stake.

Bernstein said that Crystal Amber estimated the strategic value of the business at 102p a share.

“And good to see the new chair buying shares.”

Fresh chairman Clive Whiley joined in May. At the end of last week he invested £86,000 on 200,000 ordinary shares at 43p a share.

De La Rue’s share price has gone up by more than 15% this week, and was at 50.66p at the time of writing (52-week high: 111.00p, low: 29.10p).

However, shares in the £349.7m turnover group are still down nearly 37% since the start of the year.