Insider Trades: An ASX 200 director sold $20 million worth of stock (plus 7 buys)

Welcome back to the Insider Trades series, a summary of director transactions – those on-market trades valued above $10,000 – between 22 May and 26 May 2023.

Among the directors of ASX large-caps, this time around we’ve found 10 transactions. But in the following, I’ll focus on the “sells” because a whopping $26.7 million of stock was sold from only three transactions.

Top Insider Transactions

By far the largest of these was at Goodman Group, but the week’s other big director sales – at Kelsian Group and Carsales.com – still ranked in the millions.

On the other side of the ledger, the week also saw four separate transactions from inside global auto group Eagers Automotive - tallying to more than half a million dollars.

Goodman Group (ASX: GMG)

Danny Peeters, an executive director of Goodman Limited, Goodman Funds Management Limited and Goodman Logistics (HK) Limited, takes the guernsey for the biggest transaction of the week with his 25 May sale of more than $20 million worth of stock.

A more than 10-year veteran of the firm with around two decades of experience in property and logistics, his LinkedIn profile indicates he has “oversight of Goodman’s European and Brazilian operations and strategy.”

Goodman Group 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Kelsian Group (ASX: KLS)

Neil Smith, a non-executive director of Kelsian Group, was the runner-up in terms of transaction size, selling more than $5 million of the transport company’s scrip on the same day as Peeters, as shown above. 

Kelsian is the owner of several prominent transport brands including ferry operator SeaLink and cruise company Captain Cook Cruises.

Kelsian 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Carsales.com (ASX: CAR)

And the director of another transport-linked company, Walter Pisciotta of Carsales.com, sold almost $1.6 million worth of shares on 24 May. 

A company that’s frequently featured in fund manager interviews on Livewiremarkets, Carsales was recently highlighted as a structural growth stock by Elston Asset Management’s Bruce Williams.

Carsales 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Eagers Automotive (ASX: APE)

Nicholas Politis, a non-executive director at the global automotive retailer, last week purchased three tranches of the stock, totalling more than $370,000, between 26 May and 30 May. An additional $49,500 was bought by another non-executive director, Daniel Ryan, on 26 May.

(Incidentally, the company also showed up in this screener a couple of weeks ago, when another board member Michelle Prater sold $3.5 million worth of APE stock.) ​​

Eagers Automotive 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)