The All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) has had a mildly successful start to this Wednesday's trading so far. At the time of writing, the All Ords is currently up by 0.28%, albeit having risen far higher this morning before falling back to Earth somewhat.
But the Cettire Ltd (ASX: CTT) share price hasn't been so lucky. Cettire shares are currently down by a nasty 4.3% at the time of writing at $2.69 a share.
Today's fall is just the latest in what has been a pretty awful couple of months for Cettire shares. It was only back in November last year that the company was hitting record highs of $4.80 a share. On today's pricing, Cettire is now down more than 43% from those highs. Even in 2022 so far, the Cettire share price has lost over 26% year to date.
So what might be behind this latest dive for Cettire shares?
Cettire share price dives amid insider selling rumours
Well, it's unfortunately not too clear. We haven't had any official news out of the company since Cettire announced it was partnering up with the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc (NASDAQ: JD) earlier this week. The partnership will enble Cettire to attempt to crack the lucrative Chinese luxury market. Cettire shares popped around 15% on that news.
But there are rumours swirling around today regarding Cettire's founder Dean Mintz and the massive chunk of Cettire shares that he owns.
Under Cettire's IPO prospectus, Mintz quarantined the remaining 66% or so of Cettire shares that he still owns under voluntary escrow. But 25% of that stake came out of escrow when Cettire's half-year results were released on 3 February. Another 25% will be released from escrow in August. And the remaining 50% next February.
And if a new report is to be believed, Mintz is looking to unload. According to a report in The Australian this week, there was an "understanding around the market" this week that investment bank Jarden was "pitching a small part of his holding to various investors". If true, this indicates that Mintz hasn't been wasting too much time since the shares came out of escrow and is looking to unload at least some.
Founders selling out of their own companies are rarely received well by ASX investors, even if it is to simply diversify wealth or reduce the risk of concentration. The reasons why Mintz might be unloading his shares, or even if he is unloading them at all, remain unclear. But this could be what is spooking Cettire investors today.
At the current Cettire share price, this company has a market capitalisation of $1.03 billion.
