Trading Places: Perpetual not happy little Vegemite with falling Bega Cheese share price

Gold Miner Regis Resources has new substantial shareholders after news of aborted Twiggy bid for 15% of the gold miner
Fund manager Perpetual ceases to be a substantial shareholder in Bega Cheese after its share price falls 35% year to date
State Street Corporation becomes a substantial shareholder in cloud connectivity company Megaport

Trading Places is Stockhead’s semi-regular, pretty damn fascinating recap of the latest red flag buying and selling of ASX small and mid cap shares. 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 by basic human decency (and the law) 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%.

The becoming and ceasing to be a 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.

Market overview

There has been little celebratory kisses, champagne or streamers to ring in FY23, instead it has been rather a sombre start to the new financial year. The S&P ASX 200 index is in a correction (when a market falls 10% from its recent highs) and approaching bear territory (when equity markets are down 20% or more from their recent highs).

The S&P ASX 200 has fallen more than 13% in the year to date. Marking the end of FY22 and the start of FY23 there has been some large buys and sell-offs on the ASX, whether to stem further losses or make the most of low prices to BTD. Resources stocks continue to be in high demand including gold stocks, which Stockhead’s Reuben Adams’s recently reported were positioned to be the “last man standing” in the current economic climate of rising inflation, interest rate hikes and slowing economic growth.

Buyers – Becoming

Code	Company	Market Cap	Date of change	Holder	Stake
RRL	Regis Resources	$1.12B	1/7/2022	Citigroup Global Markets Australia & related bodies	5.07%
RRL	Regis Resources	$1.12B	1/7/2022	Bank of America Corporation and its related bodies corporate	5.34%
KAR	Karoon Energy	$853.93M	6/7/2022	Australian Retirement Trust Pty LTD A	5.01%
SFR	Sandfire Resources	$1.70B	7/7/2022	First Sentier Investors Holdings & listed related bodies corporate	5.70%
RHC	Ramsay Health Care	$16.23B	6/7/2022	Pendal Group	5%
MIN	Mineral Resources	$8.71B	6/7/2022	State Street Corporation & subsidiaries named	5.04%
KGN	Kogan.com	320.78M	4/7/2022	JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates	5.04%
GEN	Genmin	$63.32M	7/7/2022	Cranport Pty Ltd	5.17%
MP1	Megaport	$1.01B	5/7/2022	State Street Corporation & subsidiaries named	5.15%

Gold miner Regis Resources (ASX:RRL), which has seen its share price tumble ~22% in the year to date to $6.41, has some new substantial share holders. Perhaps WA Mining magnate Andrew Forrest’s attempt to buy a large stake in Regis may start lifting interest in the struggling miner.

US financial service giant State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT) has become a substantial shareholder of smart cloud connectivity company Megaport (ASX:MP1). The Megaport share price has been hammered this year and is down more than 66% year to date to $6.41, along with the broader S&P/ASX All Technology Index (ASX: XTX), which is down ~35%.

Sellers – Ceasing

Code	Company	Market Cap	Date of change	Holder
BGA	Bega Cheese	$1.11B	30/6/2022	Perpetual Ltd & related bodies corporate
SFR	Sandfire Resources	$1.70B	29/6/2022	Morgan Stanley and its subsidiaries listed
FLT	Flight Centre	$3.54B	30/6/2022	UBS Group AG and its related bodies corporate
BKL	Blackmores Limited	$1.47B	6/7/2022	Spheria Asset Management Pty Ltd
BEX	BikeExchange	$11.12M	11/7/2022	Bombora Invesment Management (trustee for Bombora special investments growth fund)
NML	Navarre Minerals	$62.05M	30/6/2022	Each member of the Sun Valley Group
PDL	Pendal Group	$1.63B	6/7/2022	State Street Corporation & subsidiaries named
BSL	BlueScope Steel	$7.22B	5/7/2022	State Street Corporation & subsidiaries named
SYR	Syrah Resources	$830.02M	6/7/2022	UBS Group AG and its related bodies corporate

Do you like your Vegemite thickly spread or thin? It seems fund manager Perpetual doesn’t like it at all, selling out its stake of Vegemite owner Bega Cheese (ASX:BGA). Bega has seen a thick chunk of its share price sliced off in recent times, down more than 19% in the past month and ~35% year to date to $3.65.

Several brokers have recently downgraded their price targets for Bega, which has a range of dairy products and brought Aussie icon Vegemite back to Australian ownership in 2017. Andrew Forrest also has a stake in Bega. Rising costs of its key ingredient milk are forecast to add some pressure to Bega’s bottom line.

State Street has also been selling out of a range of ASX listed companies in July including fundie Pendal (ASX:PDL), Bluescope Steel (ASX:BSL) and Mozambique focused graphite miner Syrah Resources (ASX:SYR).

Disclosure: The author held shares in Regis Resources (ASX:RRL) at the time of writing this article.