The market often keeps a close eye on insider buying, as many believe it can indicate what those in the know expect a share to do. For instance, if a director were to snap up a significant chunk of their company's stock, it could be assumed they expect its value to rise. But what might it mean if an S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) tech insider discards nearly $13 million of their company's shares?
Interestingly, that's what seems to have been happening at WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC) over recent weeks. The company's founder, CEO, and director Richard White appears to be continually offloading his stake in its shares.
But all might not be what it seems. Let's take a closer look at the insider selling seemingly going down with the ASX 200 tech share.
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Is this ASX 200 tech insider offloading shares?
Plenty of eyes have been on WiseTech shares in recent months as White – via his company RealWise Holdings – appears to have continually sold down a monumental stake in the ASX 200 tech company.
The most recent transaction tied to White's name saw the insider apparently selling 117,731 WiseTech shares at an average price of $54.79, bringing in $6.45 million, between 4 November and 10 November.
The prior week, he 'offloaded' 111,994 shares at an average price of $57.67, totalling another $6.45 million.
Together, the transactions saw White sell a total of $12.9 million worth of the company's shares.
As of the most recent notice, RealWise Holdings directly holds nearly 890,000 WiseTech shares. It also indirectly boasts 121 million shares in the ASX 200 tech share.
However, there might be more to this story than meets the eye.
Back in December 2021, the ASX 200 company announced RealWise had entered into an equity swap transaction involving the sale of 4.3 million WiseTech shares. Thus, the recent 'insider selling' at the company could simply boil down to the unwinding of the equity swap agreement.
Commenting on the agreement in December, White said:
I am committed to driving WiseTech's global growth ambitions and positioning our CargoWise logistics execution software as the operating system for global logistics.
As WiseTech continues to gain momentum in delivering revenue growth and market penetration, we are seeing increasing interest from new, long-term investors wanting to be part of the company's growth journey, which is why it is important to enhance liquidity via an orderly process.
