Trading Places: Here are this week’s substantial shareholder movements

Link copied to
clipboard

In this weekly column, Stockhead overviews all substantial holder filings of ASX small-caps. Substantial shareholders are those holding 5% or more and these could be directors, individual investors or institutions.

Companies are required to announce when new substantial holders have come on board, when they have ceased to be shareholders or when they change their holdings.

Entrances 

As Stockhead reported on Tuesday, Perth financier Merchant Group took a 5.1% stake in Hills (ASX: HIL). They are pushing to shake up the company to lift its share price, hinting at spin outs and capital management changes.

Also on Tuesday, the Commonwealth Bank bought a 5.03 per cent stake in IVE Group (ASX: IGL). On the same day Shaw & Partners rated the IVE a Buy with a price target of $2.89 (a 27% premium to its current price).

Another big trade was Ausgold (ASX: AUC). Chalice Gold Mines offloaded its 10 per cent stake on the very day Ausgold announced a $1.8m placement to advance its latest WA gold project.

Despite being plagued by the Royal Commission, NAB have forked out $26 million for a 5.6% stake in Infigen Energy (ASX: IFN). In the last week of February, JP Morgan, RBC and Canaccord all tipped the stock to rise setting target prices of 80 cents, 60 cents and 88 cents respectively.

Infigen traded at 52 cents on Wednesday having risen 23% since Christmas.

Exits

The biggest sale this week was in Donaco (ASX: DNA) with Vincent Pirina and Mitchell Mansfield taking up a 27 per cent stake previously held by the Lim family, including CEO Joey Lim.

Donaco took a punt on offering gambling in Asia (paying $360 million on the Star Vegas) that has not paid off. Only last Thursday they announced a $36.9m half yearly loss.

The company assured investors their appointment as receivers would have no impact on the operations but they conceded it may lead to its $US40m loan, owed to Mega Bank, needing to be renegotiated due to a ‘change of control’ clause in the contract.

An investor who ceased off their own accord was James Baillieu who sold his 8.6 per cent stake in Bidenergy (ASX: BID) for around $9 million. Most of this was accumulated in August 2017 when the share price as 16 per cent.

It is now 570% higher at $1.10.

Major asset management sellers this week were Adam Smith Asset Management and AustralianSuper.

Adam Smith have sold a 7.62 per cent stake in Thorn Group (ASX: TGA), a 7.78 per cent stake in Monash IVF Group (ASX: MVF), a 7.0 per cent stake in iSentia (ASX: ISD) and a 5.82 per cent stake in Cash Converters (ASX: CCV).

Collectively these were worth $25 million, nearly half of its $63 million portfolio.

AustralianSuper sold 2 major stakes, their 5.03 per cent stake in IVE Group (ASX: IGL) plus a 5.33 per cent stake in Metals X Ltd (ASX: MLX). This was despite analysts commending both, Bell Potter and Macquarie were bullish about the latter.

Their former stake was IVE bought by the Commonwealth Bank on Tuesday.

Here is a wrap of all becoming or ceasing to be substantial holder notices lodged with the ASX in the last week, among small cap companies.

Swipe or Scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort.

Changers

Remember Factor Therapeutics (ASX: FTT)? The biotech that lost 97% of its value in a single second following the failure of its wound-dressing drug? It raised $417,000 in early February and a group of investors, led by Pura Vida Energy, bought 12 per cent in the company.

The group upped their stake to 14.9 per cent just a few days later and last week to 18.3 per cent, paying $137,681 for the privilege. A meeting of the company will be held on March 27 to determine its future direction and these shareholders wish to take it over.

Advertising platform GTN (ASX: GTN) saw Viburnum Funds increase their 15.8 per cent stake to 17.8 per cent and Ellerston Capital do likewise from 5.9 per cent to 7.3 per cent.

Beseiged tech company GetSwift (ASX: GSW) has been sued by shareholders and now ASIC are taking its directors to court for alleged misleading and deceiving conduct.

Two of Australia’s largest super funds have cut their stakes in the company, Australian Super from 7.37 per cent to 5.66 per cent and Industry Super Holdings from 6.6 per cent to 5.28 per cent.

Australian Super also reduced their stake in Propel Funeral Partners (ASX: PFP) from 9.26 per cent to 7.85 per cent.

A major buyer this week was IOOF Holdings who topped up their holdings by nearly $25 million. The companies they upped their stake in included PWR Holdings (ASX: PWH), Primero Group (ASX: PGX), Mint Payments (ASX: MNW), Otto Energy (ASX: OEL) and SRG (ASX: SRG).

IOOF also increased their stake in copper miner Metals X (ASX: MLX) from 7.35 per cent to 9.93 per cent.

Metals X also saw Mitsubishi and Morgan Stanley hike their 6.2 per cent stakes to 7.9 per cent following the exit of BlackRock and AustralianSuper.

This week Metals X released their half yearly and while Metals X are generating revenue from a West Australian near Rio Tinto operations they did lose $36 million.

Infrastructure provider Decmil Group (ASX: DCG) announced solid results including earnings of over $9 million. This did not stop the Commonwealth Bank cashing out, selling 3.1 million shares in a sale that reduced their 10.8 per cent stake to 9.5 per cent and would have netted nearly $2.7 million.

Presumably some of this was spent on the extra 0.98 per cent in SRG (ASX: SRG) they bought, taking their holding to 6.7 per cent. The transaction would have taken over $1.4 million from their coffers.

Lazard reduced its 14.9 per cent stake in Ridley Corporation (ASX: RIC) to 13.83 per cent. Ridley is up 8 per cent this year and the sale would have netted Lazard over $4 million although they are still the 2nd largest shareholder.

This came only days after their US equities head Ron Temple warned investors to brace for more volatility.

The share price of Indoor Skydive (ASX: IDZ) has lived up to its name these last two weeks falling over 50 per cent after a half-yearly where legal fees ate into its profits.

Following this, Challenger reduced their 10.1 per cent stake to 7.9 per cent and Greencape Capital cutting their stake from 6.5 per cent to 5.3 per cent.

Here is a wrap of all changes substantial holder notices lodged with the ASX in the last week, among small cap companies.

Swipe or Scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort.

• Subscribe to our daily newsletter

• Bookmark this link for small cap news

• Join our small cap Facebook group

• Follow us on Facebook or Twitter

share

• 
• 
• 
• 

Link copied to
clipboard

SUBSCRIBE

Get the latest Stockhead news delivered free to your inbox.

Name*

Email*

Hidden

Email Lists

Morning Update

Lunch Update

Market Close Update

Weekend Update

It's free. Unsubscribe whenever you want.

By proceeding, you confirm you understand that we handle personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.