In Trading Places, Stockhead analyses the week’s substantial holder filings of ASX small-caps. Substantial shareholders are defined as those holding 5 per cent or more of company’s shares and these could be directors, individual investors or institutional investors.

Shareholders are required to announce to the exchange when their shareholding becomes substantial, when they have ceased to be substantial shareholders or any change in their holdings above 5 per cent.

Buyers

After two $5 million purchases (on March 26 and April 17) a Singaporean institutional investor now holds 6.91 per cent of base metals miner Galena Mining (ASX: G1A). The strategic investment deal was signed last month and Kingfisher Capital also was issued options which will expire in four years time.

Mining intelligence solutions company Imdex (ASX: IMD) welcomed Yarra Funds Management, which for $5.1 million obtained a 5.02 per cent stake.

Thorney Opportunities bought another 1.27 million shares in Southern Cross Electrical (ASX: SXE). The purchase took its stake to 14.15 per cent and would have cost nearly $700,000.

Only a few weeks ago, Moelis released a research report into the company (made publicly available through the ASX Equity Research Scheme). The report set a target price of 88 cents and believed the recent share price decline was due to investors showing negative sentiment to the engineering sector generally.

One of Helios Energy’s (ASX: HE8) largest shareholders, Zhiqiang Shan, spent another $1 million on buying Helios shares in its most recent capital raising. However, his stake only increased from 6.01 per cent to 6.14 per cent.

Sellers

Do you remember Cabcharge? Now they’re known as A2B Australia (ASX: A2B) and have a market cap of only $257.7 million – having previously been over $1 billion pre-GFC (and pre-Uber).

Wilson Asset Management became substantial holders last September but the share price continued to fall. It sold two thirds of its stake which was just over 5 per cent.

Fund manager Tribeca reduced its stake in tech company Simble Solutions (ASX: SIS) from 7.05 per cent to 5.85 per cent. With the share price plunge in the last 12 months, the sale only netted $70,000.

Naos Asset Management reduced its stake in Motorcycle Holdings (ASX: MTO) from 7.94 per cent to 6.71 per cent, for $1.1 million. Motorcycle’s share price has been in terminal decline since January 2018 when it was as high as $5.22. Now it is only $1.52.

IOOF, through a fund-co operated with Perennial, sold $1.1 million in shares in Uniti Wireless (ASX: UWL) during the second week of April, taking its stake from 6.62 per cent to 5.13 per cent. But the week after, it sold another $113,000 shares, dragging it below the substantial holder threshold.

An earlier version of this story misidentified Kingfisher Capital as a Melbourne based firm run by Ross Illingworth. This was incorrect, it is a Singaporean private equity firm. The article has been updated to reflect this.