Trading Places: Beer giant Kirin wants to cure your hangover too, snapping up Blackmores for $1.2bn

Japanese beer giant Kirin becomes substantial shareholder of Blackmores after $1.2 takeover bid
State Street Corporation becomes substantial shareholder of Gold Road Resources as gold prices rallies
State Street Corporation sells out of Sandfire Resources, which continues bumpy transition to global copper play

Trading Places is Stockhead’s semi-regular, pretty damn fascinating recap of the latest red flag buying and selling of ASX stocks. It is here that the rubber really hits the road for fund managers, stakeholders, distant (and not-so-distant) relatives and other famous or infamous investors.

Specifically, Trading Places tracks substantial shareholder movements – namely when a trade in a company’s stock crosses or falls below the 5% threshold.

Substantial shareholders are usually directors, individual investors, institutional investors… or their distant (and not-so-distant) relatives, which they will refer to as listed related bodies corporate or something similar. You can see in detail these listed bodies on the company’s ASX announcement.

Shareholders are required to publicly declare via the exchange when their personal stake goes below or above 5%, and from there, every movement in their holdings while owning above 5%.

Those becoming and those ceasing to be substantial shareholders are the ones we think are worth noting, where a trade takes an investor over the 5% threshold or has them drop back below.

Here’s the form to get you started, if reading this makes you twitchy.

April market overview

April was a good month for the Australian share market which rose overall April. The S&P ASX 200 finished up 1.85% in April and extended its YTD gain to 5.38%. Mid and small caps outperformed the blue-chips in April with the S&P ASX MidCap 50 finishing the month up 3.5% and the S&P ASX Small Ordinaries gaining 2.8%.

READ ASX April Winners: Mid and small caps outperform blue-chip peers as gold stocks keep up rally

Across the sectors there was plenty of substantial holder activity during April. Here’s some that got our attention in the last few days of April.

Recent Buys

Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort.

Code	Company	Market cap	Date	Holder	Holding
PBH	Pointsbet Holding	$560.02 million	Apr-27	State Street Corporation and subsidiaries named	6%
MLX	Metals X	$253.95 million	Apr-26	Bank of America Corporation and its related bodies corporate	5.54%
LIC	Lifestyle Communities	$1.73 billion	Apr-27	State Street Corporation and subsidiaries named	5.01%
BKL	Blackmores	$1.83 billion	Apr-26	Kirin Holdings Company	18.08%
PGC	Paragon Care	$174.73 million	Apr-26	Pioneer Pharma	8.27%
GOR	Gold Road Resources	$2.05 billion	Apr-21	Vanguard Group and its controlled entities	5.01%

Japanese beer giant launches $1.2 billion bid for Blackmores

Kirin, the Japanese company that owns various Australian iconic beer brands, has become a substantial shareholder in Blackmores (ASX:BKL) with an 18% stake following its $1.2 billion takeover bid.

Kirin lobbed a $95/share for 100% of the vitamin giant, which the board unanimously agreed to.

Chair Wendy Stops describes the deal as “representing an attractive, all-cash transaction”.

“The Blackmores board believes the agreed scheme consideration represents appropriate long-term value for the company and an attractive outcome for Blackmores shareholders,” she said in an announcement.

“The Blackmores board has accordingly unanimously recommended that Blackmores shareholders vote in favour of the scheme, subject to customary conditions such as independent expert conclusions and no superior proposal.”

BKL said its largest shareholder Marcus Blackmore, with `18% of the company’s ordinary shares, has agreed with Kirin to sell, pocketing ~$335m.

The 78-year-old told The Australian he’s already seen the company, which bears his surname, sold twice before including once when he was a teenager and the second time in 1985 when the company listed on the ASX.

“The Blackmore family never owned more than 45% of the business, so ownership was not a priority,” he told The Australian.

And while they may seem like strange bedfellows, Blackmore believes the beer company will actually be a good custodian of the healthcare company. Stockhead’s Secret Broker reckons Kirin basically makes up the entire offering at his local watering hole.

Kiran own: XXXX Gold, James Squire, Tooheys New, Iron Jack, Furphy’s, Little Creatures, Hahn, Byron Bay, James Boag’s, Emu Bitter, Southwark, West End, Swan Draught, Kosciuszko Pale Ale, White Rabbit, Bevy Brewing Co, Malt Shovel Brewers, Eumundi Brewery, Tiny Mountain and lastly, Stone & Wood.

Other notable buys

Vanguard group and its controlled entities became a substantial shareholder of Gold Road Resources (ASX:GOR), which reported its flagship 50%-owned Gruyere JV delivered quarterly gold production of 82,604oz (100% basis) (December quarter: 74,201 ounces).

AISC of A$1,399/oz was a big improvement on the December quarter (A$1,622 per ounce) and sets it apart as one of the lowest cost operations on the ASX.

ASX gold stocks had a a solid run in April as price of the precious metal made two aborted attempts at record territory (+US$2070/oz).

State Street Corporation and its subsidiaries named also made a bet on Pointsbet Holdings (ASX:PBH), which recently reported Q3 FY23 results including total group net win up 39% for the quarter at $106.6 million.

The rolling 12-month group net win to March 31, 2023 is $374.6 million. Australian Net Win was $50.7 million, down 3% on the pcp, however PBH said growth in Australian net win contribution from mass market clients of 15% for this segment vs pcp leads to improved long-term sustainability.

“Strong momentum continues in our North American business and the Australian business is outperforming the market in an industry facing headwinds,” PBH managing director and CEO Sam Swanell said.

“Group Net Win growth was a company record this quarter and continues to perform well vs pcps, and together with our continued focus on reducing costs, improves the global business performance.

The BKL,GOR & PBH share price today:

Recent sells

Swipe or scroll to reveal full table. Click headings to sort.

Code	Company	Market Cap	Date of change	Holder
MVF	Monash IVF Group	$461.67 million	Apr-27	Regal Funds Management Pty Ltd and its associates
FAR	Far Limited	$66.33 million	Apr-26	Morgan Stanley and its subsidiaries listed
DTL	Data3	$1.14 billion	Apr-26	First Sentier Investors Holdings and related bodies corporate
SFR	Sandfire Resources	$2.87 billion	Apr-24	State Street Corporation and subsidiaries named
JBH	JB Hi-Fi	$4.95 billion	Apr-21	JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates
IFT	Infratil	$6.91 billion	Apr-27	Fisher Funds Management Limited and Kiwi Wealth Investments

State Street Corporation and its subsidiaries sold out of Sandfire Resources (ASX:SFR) toward the end of April. Stockhead’s Josh Chat reported in April SFR is showing signs “its transition from the company that set the world alight with the DeGrussa discovery in WA’s transition into a global copper play will continue to be a bumpy ride”.

SFR has refined its metal guidance to 87,000t of copper, 86,000t zinc, 9000t lead, 20,000oz gold and 2.8Moz of silver at C1 costs of US$1.79/lb in FY23 after producing 18,509t Cu, 21,294t Zn, 2269t Pb, 5111oz Au and 700,000oz Ag in the March quarter at US$2/lb.

Most of that came from the MATSA copper operations in Spain, where copper equivalent production rose 10% to 25,000t on higher zinc, lead and silver numbers.

It is replacing the DeGrussa mine where mining ended last year and SFR is running down oxide stockpiles at its once Mid-West flagship.