RE: Busy afternoon22 Feb 2023 19:56
Yes, very weird trading pattern today, you just have to look at the chart for today and you will see the orchestrated drop and then the uplift shortly afterwards. Not sure what that was all about, maybe it was a case of 'me to you, you to me' trading between the MMs to give the impression of a busy market in the shares.
There were numerous trades of 12,240, 11,285 and 25,387 shares amongst others but definitely not a sign of an orderly market in Foxtons shares.
I mentioned on here a couple of weeks back about reduced institutional holdings citing poor performance of the stock but the lacklustre and 'controlled' market in Foxton shares is a result of the American Banks and US hedge funds sucking the life out of the market but at the same time stealthily picking up stock as and when institutions dump shares.
Its what I've been saying for the last few weeks, for example Platinum Investment management ltd held around 35m shares in Foxtons as per the annual accounts of 2021 but now only hold just over 500,000 shares.
Hosking Partners once held a similar amount but are now down to just over a 5m share holding and there are many institutions on this list that have exited stage right completely, its only Aberforth Partners whom have doubled their holding and now have a position of some 38m shares.
So, as I said before my hunch is that BC Partners may buy the company back, remember they floated Foxtons with a market valuation of around Β£650m- Β£700m back in 2014 if I remember rightly, so they will be massively in profit with Foxtons valued at just around Β£120m as of today without a bid premium to the shares.
With a massively reduced institutional shareholder base and goodness knows how much stock they already have in their satchels, don't worry about the 3%,5%,10% UK holding reporting rules, these are American banks and hedge funds we're talking about here and when it comes to UK rules and regulations our government and the FCA especially just look the other way.
And now have a look at this link and click on holdings, buying, selling etc. and you too will get a flavour of what the US banks and hedge funds are up to, I could be very wrong here but I'm going with my hunch here and picked up a few more shares this afternoon !!
https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xlon/foxt/ownership