KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 30): Top Glove Corp Bhd, which suspended its trading for an hour this morning, drew the public's attention to a filing showing its executive chairman Tan Sri Lim Wee Chai has bought an additional 3.29 million shares at an average price of RM6.07 yesterday.
The latest share purchase has bumped up his direct shareholding to 26.2% in the glove manufacturer. Meanwhile, he also holds an indirect stake of 8.62%. His total shareholding is 34.82%.
Top Glove's share price opened higher at 10am on Bursa Malaysia after a one-hour trading halt and climbed to RM6.23 against yesterday’s closing of RM6.01 — the lowest level since early July. As at noon break, it closed at RM6.11 with 13.8 million shares traded.
Including the latest transaction, Top Glove founder Lim has spent RM69.72 million to mop up shares on the open market in December when the share price has been on the decline most of the month, no thanks to the Covid-19 outbreak among its foreign factory workers and news on the poor conditions at its worker dormitories.
On Dec 14, Lim spent RM19.98 million to buy 3.1 million shares in Top Glove with an average price of between RM6.39 and RM6.49. On Dec 9 and 10, he bought 4.28 million shares for RM29.78 million in the price range of between RM6.93 and RM6.99.
Top Glove, meanwhile, has stopped its share buyback exercise in the past two weeks. Its last purchase was on Dec 14 when it bought back 576,900 shares for RM3.63 million.
Top Glove currently has 178.36 million treasury shares, according to the latest filing.
The group might have been mindful of its share buyback exercise considering that the 2% creeping threshold limit does apply to its controlling shareholder Lim, whose shareholding will increase in tandem as the group buys back more shares.
A company’s share capital is based on the number of voting shares, any treasury share will not be included.
Based on Asia Analytical’s calculation, Top Glove will have room to buy back an additional 89 million shares as of end-November before Lim hit the creeping rule threshold.
In December, Top Glove so far bought back roughly 18.33 million shares in three trading days.