Norway’s Wilh Wilhelmsen Holdings has put $1.2m on the table to boost its holding in Wallenius Wilhelmsen shares while they are selling at $20 under their recent peak.
Wilh Wilhelmsen chief executive officer Thomas Wilhelmsen did not respond to a request for comment.
A company spokesman pointed out that the purchase does not significantly change the company’s holding, but she would not be drawn on whether Wilh Wilhelmsen might take further advantage of the slump in Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s share price since its quarterly results announcement.
“It was an opportunity we saw on Friday,” said Wilh Wilhelmsen communications director Benedicte Teigen Gude.
The news comes after car carrier giant Wallenius Wilhelmsen got a lukewarm greeting from Oslo-based analysts following its second-quarter results.
The Wallenius Wilhelmsen share price, which has climbed steadily from single digits at its low point in March 2020, peaked on 16 August at $75.95, on the day the company released quarterly results featuring a $126m after-tax bottom line and a $38m dividend payout during the quarter.
The results came amid generally very bullish market sentiment for car carriers, where the Oslo-based Wallenius Wilhelmsen is a heavyweight both as an owner and operator, on its own and through several global affiliates.
But Norwegian analysts and finance journalists expressed disappointment with the record profits figure and slashed their previously enthusiastic share price targets.
The stock slumped immediately and stayed down.
At midday on Monday 29 August, it stood at $56.50.
Wilh Wilhelmsen Holdings, however, responded after close of business last Friday with an acquisition of shares. The company announced it had acquired 210,000 shares at an average price of something over $55.85 per share, paying out some $1.2m, or a small share of the dividend Wilh Wilhelmsen received last quarter.
As one of the original owners of former joint venture Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Oslo-based Wilh Wilhelmsen Holding is the smaller of two large shareholders in the car carrier giant.
Norwegian public records show Wilh Wilhelmsen with a 37.816% share in Wallenius Wilhelmsen, just behind a 38.374% share held by Skandinaviska Enskilda Bank (SEB), corresponding to the Wallenius side of the former joint venture.
