LeapRate Exclusive… LeapRate has learned from regulatory filings made by payments services and technologies provider SafeCharge International Group Ltd (LON:SCH) that global bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) has sold its remaining stake in the company (or, down to what SafeCharge called ‘no longer a notifiable interest in the company’).
JPMorgan had taken a 7.43% stake in SafeCharge late last year, becoming the largest outside shareholder in the company. (SafeCharge is controlled by Israeli online magnate Teddy Sagi). We reported last week that JPMorgan had sold about half of its stake in SafeCharge, as SafeCharge shares continue a march downward over the past three months.
SafeCharge has been active buying back some of its own shares in the open market in the past week.
As we reported last week, it looks like JPMorgan will take a loss on its SafeCharge position. Assuming that it acquired the SafeCharge shares at around the time it first reported the position in early December, JPMorgan paid around £2.50 per share. SafeCharge is now trading at around £1.92 after a steady decline in the company’s shares late April. So it looks like JPMorgan booked a £5.7 million (USD $7.4 million) loss on its SafeCharge stake.
There doesn’t seem to be an easy explanation for SafeCharge’s three month share price drop (see graph below). The company indicated recently that it will report record EBITDA for the first half of 2016. However SafeCharge did seem to hint that EBITDA didn’t grow by that much. Perhaps investors are sensing that things are stable at SafeCharge, but that the company isn’t growing much at this point.
SafeCharge one year share price graph. Source: CNBC.