why did lew come back in at $2.10??? Lew's double-take puts Just...

why did lew come back in at $2.10??? Lew's double-take puts Just on notice
Strictly Private
By Christopher Webb
June 28, 2005


Share and rag-trader Solomon Lew's little sortie onto the Just Group share register was helped along by the decision of two of the retail group's larger shareholders to sell some of their stakes.

Lew spent $36 million on 8.6 per cent of Just Group, becoming one of four or five substantial shareholders, none of which hold more than 10 per cent of the capital.

Lew bought his initial 10 million shares stake following a Just Group earnings downgrade and has now given Just chief Howard John McDonald something to think about.

Lew picked up nearly half his stake on the day Just group shares lost 21 per cent and he then bought nearly 3 million shares in the days after the downgrade.

If he'd kept buying he would have secured the same stake he has now, but at a lower price.

But, for whatever reason, he pulled out of the market and did not return until the scrip had bounced back to $2.05 and $2.10.

Now, there have been a couple of market players in the Just market.

Capital Group of the US emerged as a substantial shareholder a couple of days before the downgrade while Perpetual Trustees had been doing a spot of buying and selling and the institution emerged as a substantial shareholder soon after Just's earnings downgrade.

Elsewhere, Barclays Global Investors appears to have been unimpressed by the downgrade and by the end of May the fund manager was no longer a substantial shareholder, disposing of decent lines of stock at around the $1.84 mark.

Meanwhile, Lew, with his holding still under wraps, did not get back into the market until June 20 when he bought 5 million shares, followed by nearly 3 million in the next two days.

Perpetual once again was in the thick of the trading and was a major supplier of shares to the Lew interests.

The other fund manager that decided to tip out a chunk of its holding was 452 Capital, the outfit associated with Peter Morgan and the Commonwealth Bank.

Between them Perpetual and 452 Capital supplied most of the Lew buying when Just shares were fetching $2.05 and $2.10.

Meanwhile, on the market, Just scrip has settled at $2.04, which means Lew is about $1.9 million ahead on his average $1.92 entry price.