Rear Window
Wisr’s largest shareholder a lucky seller
Myriam RobinColumnistOn the day non-bank lender Wisr posted full-year revenue growth of 55 per cent, the just-ousted chief executive who secured the result entered a not-guilty plea.
As previously reported, Anthony Nantes has in recent days been sacked and then charged with stalking offences. He remained in custody on Thursday, having been earlier denied bail.
At Wisr’s full-year results briefing, acting chairman Matt Brown repeated that the board had “over recent months” come to the view that Nantes wasn’t up to being CEO, through discussions in which chairman John Nantes (Anthony’s brother) had not been part of.
Wisr’s Anthony Nantes has had a bad week.
We thought the excruciating sensitivities of this were wholly familial. But that isn't the whole story.
Throughout the year, Wisr’s largest shareholder Adcock Private Equity, has been a steady seller, often at prices double the 3¢ the stock fetches today. John Nantes’ Wisr biography notes he “advises” Adcock, the private vehicle of pilot turned jeweller Brook Adcock, “in a CEO capacity”.
By selling between March 3 and April 21, well before Anthony Nantes was sacked, Adcock crystalised nearly $1 million worth of share disposals at an average price of 6c a share, which is roughly twice what it would have realised this month.
Adcock remains Wisr’s biggest shareholder (with 12 per cent) and merely sold a portion of its holdings. It began selling in small parcels all the way back in September. This looks like a routine portfolio rebalancing, rather than an attempt to get in front of bad news.
Still, lucky divestments tend to raise plenty of eyebrows. No wonder the company is so keen to emphasise that John Nantes’ hands were clean.
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