Big Deals

Christopher Roberts is well known for his role as the CEO of the $3 billion bionic ear manufacturer Cochlear (COH). But he is also a founding director of the $4.5 billion sleep products manufacturer ResMed (RMD). Documents lodged with the ASX over a period of three days show Roberts traded more than $5.3 million worth of stock in both companies.
Over February 21 and 23, he acquired more than 55,000 shares in Cochlear for about $3.2 million. The stock had just eased off record highs after reporting an 11.5% lift in interim profits and forecasting a $100 million profit for the year. The parcel of shares is worth about $3.2 million and the financing for the transaction was secured by Macquarie Bank, by way of a put option exercisable in 2010.

On the same day as Roberts was finalising the purchase of the Cochlear shares, February 23, a parcel of ResMed shares in which he had held direct and indirect interests were sold on market – 35,000 shares were sold, returning the princely sum of $2.2 million to his back pocket.

As chairman of Morgan Stanley Australia, one could reasonably consider Harrison Young to be sophisticated investor. Earlier this year, Young was appointed to the board of the Commonwealth Bank (CBA), and in a statement to the ASX at the time he declared that he did not own any shares in the bank. The situation was quickly remedied after another statement was lodged on February 28, notifying the ASX that Young had scrounged up enough cash to include 20,000 CBA shares in his portfolio. At $49.70 a pop, the parcel was worth a touch under $1 million.

Mark Rowsthorn is known as a multi-millionaire, brother to actor Peter Rowsthorn (Brett in ABC's Kath and Kim) and one of the switched-on business brains behind Toll Holdings. We can now add “astute investor” to his pedigree. Last year on December 8 (http://www.eurekareport.com.au/iis/iis.nsf/ak/FsXd6Z?opendocument) we reported that Rowsthorn bought 50,000 shares in Virgin Blue (VBA) for about $98,000. This week we can reveal that he sold back the shares on market for a tidy profit. A notice delivered the ASX on February 26 reveals that he sold 50,000 shares in Virgin Blue for $138,000. The transaction brought a neat profit of $40,000 – or a return of 40% in just a little under three months.

Another big fish looking to reorganise his affairs is the former finance director of Computershare (CPU) Tony Wales. Now a non-executive director, Wales was instrumental in the expansion of the company in his role as finance director of Computershare from 1981 to 2001. Over the past two years the stock has outperformed, rising from $5.76 on March 1, 2005, to $10.01 on March 1. 2007 – a return of about 37% per annum. Between February 22 and 26, Wales sold two million shares in Computershare for more than $21 million. He retains a holding the company valued at about $315 million.

Self-made HR guru Julia Ross has reduced her holdings in the $55 million recruitment business she founded more than 10 years ago. Ross Human Directions (RHD) has bounced around a bit over the past year, hitting a year low of 40¢ on June 14, 2006, before to a 12-month high of 77¢ or February 2. Taking advantage of the strength in the price, 1.5 million shares that Ross had direct and indirect interests in were sold on the market on February 28. Ross still holds more than 36 million shares in the company valued at around $21 million – or about the same value that was placed on her Sydney harbourside mansion Villa del Mare when she bought in 2005.

Francis Galbally is a non-executive director at software and services company Senetas (SEN) and the son of legendary criminal lawyer Frank Galbally. Sitting alongside Galbally on the Senetas board are the former Victorian Treasurer Alan Stockdale and Major General J M Connolly. But despite the illustrious company, Senetas has disappointed shareholders over the years with its patchy performance. On February 23, 1.8 million shares in which Galbally had held direct and indirect interest, were sold on the exchange for about 26¢ each, netting the director about $468,000. Galbally still holds 18.6 million shares in the company.