A family trust controlled by Pinnacle Technology Holdings CEO Arnold Fourie has sold R33m worth of the company’s shares. Pinnacle announced on Tuesday that the Carmen Fourie Family Trust had offloaded 1,5m shares at a price of R22/share.
At the end of the 2012 financial year, the trust held 10,9m shares in Pinnacle, representing 6,9% of the company’s equity, just slightly behind the largest shareholder, 36One Asset Management. At the current share price, those shares, less the 1,5m sold this week, are worth R210m.
Fourie could not immediately be reached for comment on his mobile phone on the reason for the trust’s sale, but equities analyst Irnest Kaplan says that although it’s “never nice when a top guy sells a big chunk of shares”, the fact that Fourie’s trust still holds a significant stake in Pinnacle means there’s probably no reason for concern.
“When a director buys shares, that’s always a positive sign, but it’s not necessarily negative when he sells,” Kaplan says. “He hasn’t sold a material portion of the stake. If he sold all of his shares, that would be a very strong message.”
Pinnacle, which owns IT distributors Axiz Workgroup and Pinnacle Africa, among other businesses, has been one of the star performers on the JSE over the past three years, rising from less than R5/share to more than R22/share this week. In the past 12 months alone, its share price has climbed by more than 50%. Its market value has soared to nearly R4bn.
Kaplan says he remains bullish about Pinnacle’s prospects. “It’s had a great run and it’s still not expensive. I still like it as an investment.” — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media
