By Andrea Hargraves 
Jerónimo Martins’ second largest shareholder, Asteck, has sold his entire 5% stake in the retailer that owns Pingo Doce, through an “accelerated book,” as he noted in Reported to CMVM The company is led by Pedro Soares dos Santos, confirming the news investigated by Bloomberg.
Asteck, which belongs to a holding company in the oil sector, offered institutional investors 31,464.759 million shares it held in JM, for €19.75, equivalent to €621.42 million.
This equates to a discount of 8.6% compared to Monday’s closing price (€21.61), the historically high. Had the sale been made at the market value at which each share closed today, it would have totaled around €680 million.
To date, this was the second largest shareholder after Sociedad Francisco Manuel dos Santos, who controls 56.14% of the capital.
Selling the position could be a way to make capital gains, as Jerónimo Martins has significantly increased its value in recent sessions. Just last month, bonds are up 12.3%, after hitting an all-time high of €21.61 a share on Monday on PSI-20. At these market prices, 31.464.750 could sell for 679.953.248 euros.
The Luxembourg-based company entered the capital of the owner of Pingo Doce in 2007, having bought part of the position previously held by BPP. Asteck previously held a 10% stake in the retailer, but already in 2013 it sold part of the shares, at that time for less than 17 euros per share.
After the transaction (and the buyer is not yet known), the shareholder structure now includes JP Morgan Asset Management (with 2.35% of the share capital), Comgest Global Investors (with 2.06%) and T. Rowe (with 2.04%) while 32.41% of the Stocks in the stock exchange and stock.
(last updated news at 23:38 with sell price indicator)