Trading Places: Slattery dumps $39 million of Megaport shares

Megaport founder and chairman Bevan Slattery dumps 3 million shares
Coda Minerals increases stake in Torrens Mining
Ignite Group CEO becomes a substantial holder

Trading Places is Stockhead’s semi-regular, pretty damn fascinating recap of the latest red flag buying and selling of ASX small 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 an individual’s trade in a company’s stock crosses the 5% threshold.

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%.

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

Sellers – Slattery sells $39m worth of Megaport stock

Smart cloud connectivity company Megaport (ASX:MP1) founder and chairman Bevan Slattery offloaded 3 million shares in a trade via the UBS equities desk. The stock changed hands at $13.05 a share, which was a 4.2% discount to the five-day VWAP, amounting to ~$39 million in Slattery’s pocket.

The trade takes Slattery’s stake in the company to ~5% mark with ownership still of ~8 million shares. He also retains his spot as the company’s largest individual investor.

In an announcement Slattery said he remains committed to Megaport, which he founded in 2013 and listed on the ASX in 2015.

“I have no intention of selling shares within the next six months and am committed to ensuring the company’s success as it continues to scale up and scale out,” Slattery said.

He’s believed to have sold the shares to fund other investments, but the news initially didn’t go down well with investors with shares in Megaport sinking ~6% since Slattery’s sale to ~$12.89.

Meanwhile, Perennial Value Management up its stake slightly to just over 12% in another of Slattery’s companies, fibre network provider Superloop (ASX:SLC).

Superloop’s share price has fallen 21% in the past year to 94 cents, despite recently announcing its half year revenue had soared by 125 per cent year-on-year to $119.8 million. The increase follows its $110-million Exetel acquisition, which was completed in July 2021.

For the half year ended 31 December 2021, Superloop added more than 110k consumer and business customers from Exetel to its existing base.

Its customer revenue saw the biggest growth, up by 303.4 per cent to almost $60 million, while the business unit’s revenue grew by 124.5 per cent to $35 million.

Buyers – Coda Minerals ups stake in Torrens Mining

Copper explorer Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) has started to increase its stake in junior JV partner Torrens Mining (ASX:TRN) on the back of a $23 million merger proposal.

In a series of trades in the past week, Coda has been steadily increasing its substantial holdings in Torrens to ~27.63%.

The merger means consolidating ownership of the Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia. The project includes the prized Emmie Bluff Deeps target, considered the largest known sediment-hosted copper deposits in Australia.

COD announced last year that its first diamond drillhole at Emmie Bluff Deeps target had intersected 200m of intense IOCG (iron oxide copper gold) alteration, including ~50m of copper sulphides. IOCG discoveries — while often super deep — are considered super rare and lucrative.

TRN’s board of directors unanimously recommend that shareholders accept the offer “in the absence of a superior proposal”.

Torrens shares have seen a 25% drop in price in the past year to 14 cents with need of a cash injection. According to its Q2 FY22 financial report Coda has agreed to a $2m loan during the takeover to ensure Torrens can meet its financial obligations.

Ignite Group CEO becomes substantial holder

Digital marketing agency Ignite Group (ASX:IGN) CEO Tim Moran has become a substantial owner of the stock with a holding of 9.29%. Moran purchased ~8.3 million shares at 18 cents per share on March 14.

Westferry Operations (The Westferry Fund) has ceased to be a substantial holder of after selling more than 8 million shares at 18 cents per share, totalling ~$1.5 million.

The ignite share price has soared 43.75% in the past month and is currently trading ~23 cents on no announcements.