no news on the front, page-27

joeyjp, info about IFM's top holders (including instos) seems scarce, but ASX releases and news offer some insight.

The big news recently was that IFM's departed CEO (Graham) sold 99% of his shares to instos in August through Macquarie at 56 cents. This was 102M shares, representing 34% of IFM's shares. Non-exec director Herszberg also sold his stake because he's retiring. Graham still holds 2.5M shares, and recently acquired a few more (including some of Herszberg's).

From ASX notices, looks like Perpetual (PPT) bought the largest chunk of Graham's shares in late August, going from under 5% (possibly zero) to 13% of IFM's shares. PPT are considered savvy investors, so might be a good sign. Other instos also increased holdings of IFM when Graham sold, including CBA, Fidelity, Yarragene (small Melbourne investment firm?), and Celeste. Each has around 5%-7% of total shares and reported becoming or increasing their substantial shareholding. Fidelity increased a little this week.

What do the ASX notices say about current insto trading? Not much, and they usually offer only summary past info. Celeste has an ASX small cap "index" fund, so they need to buy/sell to keep IFM's percentage close to the index.

Some above average trading this past week, with some large trades (e.g. 1M shares traded early today), but difficult to interpret. In spite of the recent ASX weakness, IFM has held up well, suggesting instos are holding or maybe accumulating. Still, the register also has a bunch of sellers around 60 cents.