Pinnacle Holdings CEO Arnold Fourie has taken advantage of this week’s sell-off in the technology group’s share price by snapping up more than R13m worth of shares. The slump in the share price followed the arrest of executive director Takalani Tshivhase for alleged corruption,

On Friday, Pinnacle revealed to shareholders that the Arnold Fourie Family Trust had bought a million shares over 30 trades at an average weighted price of R13,21/share. The total value of the transaction was R13,2m.

Pinnacle began tanking at the market open on Tuesday after TechCentral broke the news of Tshivhase’s arrest. The director stands accused of attempting to bribe a top police official with R5m to secure a lucrative technology contract.

Through Pinnacle, Tshivhase has denied the charges. However, on Wednesday Pinnacle announced that he had requested to take a leave of absence until the criminal proceedings had been concluded, after which his position would be “reviewed”.

The JSE is now investigating trading in Pinnacle shares after Tshivhase last week sold R4m worth of shares, with the company’s permission, before the news of his arrest broke. Pinnacle explained that Tshivhase had notified it of his plans to sell the shares as early as January, long before his arrest on 5 March.

CEO Arnold Fourie also offloaded a large number of shares — 1,2m — in recent weeks, but explained in a Sens statement that this sale had been “forced” on him and had been pending for some time.

The scandal that erupted around Tshivhase led to a 43% slump in Pinnacle’s share price over a two-day period this week, with R1,5bn being wiped off its market capitalisation. It has since regained some lost ground, trading at R14,30 in late Friday afternoon trading, above its low point of the week of R11,45. However, it’s still trading far below its level of R20/share at Monday’s close, before news of the arrest was published. — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Media