Pinnacle CEO in R13.2 million share buy-back
Pinnacle CEO Arnold Fourie has injected R13.2 million back into the controversy-hit firm, through the acquisition of one million shares.
In a SENS announcement on Friday (28 March), Pinnacle stated that its CEO, Arnold Fourie, through the Arnold Fourie Family Trust, purchased 1 million shares in the company at R13.58, worth a total value of R13.2 million.
This follows the company’s stock price tanking during the course of the week, after the arrest of Pinnacle executive director, Takalani Tshivhase, and culminating in a flurry of share sales by directors – including Fourie.
Pinnacle lost approximately 50% of its market value on Tuesday and Wednesday after the South African Police Service (SAPS) announced on Monday (24 March) that Tshivhase had been arrested on 5 March 2014, on charges of bribery.
Tshivhase allegedly offered a lieutenant general in the technology management environment of the SAPS R5 million to secure a multimillion rand tender for his company.
In response to the allegations, Pinnacle said that “Mr Tshivhase denies all allegations of attempted bribery, and will defend the charges.”
Trade timeline
On 14 March, 2014, Fourie disposed of 1,200,000 shares at a price of R19.17, totalling R23 million.
Also on 14 March, Executive director George Wiehahn sold 80,000 shares, totalling over R1.6 million, followed by 53 trades totalling 161,518 shares at a value of R2.7 million on Tuesday (25 March).
Then, on 19 March, 2014, Tshivhase completed three sale trades totalling 200,000 shares at a share value of R20.00, totaling R4 million.
On 27 March, Louis Fourie, executive director of a major subsidiary of Pinnacle, also disposed of 160,000 shares (at R12.49), totalling R2 million.
Shares in Pinnacle continued to rebound on Friday (28 March), adding 3.1% or R0.42 to R14.00 on the local bourse, shortly before 15:00.
In an interview on BusinessDay TV, Fourie rejected any form of insider trading by any of its executives.
Defending his own trading activity, he said: “Firstly, talking about my options, I entered the zero cost collar on December 2012, which the corresponding bank had the right to call the shares on me, they’ve been calling shares on me since December of last year.”
He said that the bank exercised its option again in the last month. “It was not my decision. It’s a deal that was done in December 2012. It’s certainly not selling of shares. It’s options that have been called on me from the corresponding bank.”
More on Pinnacle
More share dumping at Pinnacle
Pinnacle CEO denies insider trading
Pinnacle shares crushed on bribery charge
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