This company and its predecessor, in the not so distant past,...

This company and its predecessor, in the not so distant past, have been paying various overseas consultants (mostly in the US) with shares as full or part payment for services rendered.
It may well be that one or more of these consultants use a large broker (Bank of NY Mellon, as example) to trickle-sell their holdings. These consultants usually have their ears close to the ground and may hear murmurs that we, some 10,000 miles away, have no way of hearing.