KUALA LUMPUR: PDZ Holdings Bhd, one of the most actively traded counters which contributed to the broader market’s record trading volume last week, saw two of its executive directors selling shares over the past few days, several filings with Bursa Malaysia showed yesterday.

According to one filing, PDZ executive director Lim Jian Hoo sold 100,000 shares at 35 sen apiece on Aug 26, while the stock closed at 33 sen on that day. The filing with Bursa did not state whether the shares were sold on the open market.

Following the disposal, Lim, who was appointed to PDZ’s board in 1998, was left with 1.4 million shares, equivalent to a 0.16% stake in the company. Earlier on April 28, he sold 3.5 million PDZ shares, the transaction price of which was not disclosed, though PDZ closed at 15.5 sen on that day.

Lim’s first shareholding filing with PDZ showed that he had exercised his employee share option scheme in March 2004 to acquire 400,000 shares at RM1.26 each. The stock later underwent a 1-to-10 stock split in 2007, which resulted in his holding swelling to a few million shares.

Meanwhile, another executive director, Ong Khoon Seng, sold all his 220,000 shares in PDZ on Aug 21 and 22, filings with Bursa showed yesterday. Ong was appointed to PDZ’s board in April 2012, and had 900,000 shares in the company then. He began selling his shares in the company earlier this year.

PDZ’s share price has risen 113% since April, following some changes in the major shareholdings in the company — from tycoon Tan Sri Robert Tan to Pelaburan Mara Bhd, along with news of potential oil and gas play.

Nevertheless, the rally happened mostly over the past four weeks, where the stock jumped 91.18% from 17 sen on Aug 1. The counter was one of the penny stocks that saw record trading volumes, particularly last week, sparking concerns from stock market participants that the market could be overheating.

Last Wedneday, PDZ, along with Sumatec Resources Bhd, Globaltec Formation Bhd and Marco Holdings Bhd (also linked to Tan), together racked up a total traded volume of 2.6 billion shares, which represented a third of Bursa’s all-time high market volume of 7.67 billion shares that day.

Rumours of corporate figure Tan Sri Halim Saad or a party linked to him coming in as a major shareholder in the company had stoked interest in PDZ last week. Both Halim — the former Renong group chief and now major shareholder of Sumatec — and Tan are reportedly close to former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin.

After the initial euphoria, however, the counter somewhat cooled off this week, closing at 32.5 sen yesterday, down from its near 17-year high close of 37.5 sen on Aug 19.

The Edge Financial Daily had reported on Aug 21 that Halim’s associate James Chan could be looking at purchasing a 10% stake in PDZ from its current major shareholder Pelaburan Mara, which currently holds a 26.83% stake having purchased a major portion of it from Tan just four months ago.

In response to the article, PDZ announced to the stock exchange on the same day that “the company, after making due enquiries with the major shareholder (Pelaburan Mara), would like to confirm and announce that the major shareholder has been approached by several parties expressing their intention to purchase its stake in the company”.


This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on August 28, 2014.