Ann: Pause in Trade, page-119

Explosive Wisetech report rubbished

An explosive J Capital report that accused local technology titan Wisetech Global of fraud "made some serious 'mistakes'", says Evans and Partners analyst Paul Mason, who remained bullish on the stock with a favourable recommendation and $35.59 valuation.

Mr Mason disagreed with several critical aspects of the report – authored by Anne Stevenson-Yang – and called much of the evidence presented in it "useless" and "meaningless".

But he saved his most comprehensive rebuttal for J Capital's argument that the stock was a promotion vehicle to help insiders cash out.

"This is the best bit," the analyst said. "If there is a single founder/CEO in tech that could have (and probably should have) sold more of his stock than he has, it is Richard White."

"Pre-IPO, Richard held 150,771,269 shares in Wisetech. He basically didn’t want to sell anything but agreed to a minor sell down for liquidity."

The only other time Mr White had sold shares was again to attain the liquidity required for Wisetech to enter the S&P/ASX 200, which has left his shareholding valued at around $4.5 billion.

"My initial read of this report is that it has made some serious 'mistakes' in its analysis, and there is nothing in the report that would change my view on the company," he concluded.

– 11.53am Australian Financial Review