One of the best performers on the All Ordinaries index on Thursday has been the Praemium Ltd (ASX: PPS) share price.
In afternoon trade the investment platform provider's shares are up over 11% to 39 cents.
Despite this strong gain, it is worth noting that the Praemium share price is still down 41% since the start of the year.
This is due largely to the loss of ANZ Private as a customer to rival Netwealth Group Ltd (ASX: NWL). ANZ Private was one of the company's biggest customers, contributing 8% of its total revenue.
Why is the Praemium share price charging higher today?
Today's gain appears to have been driven by some rampant insider buying this month.
It looks as though the company's CEO, Michael Ohanessian, believes that the selloff has been overdone and has left Praemium's shares trading at an attractive level.
According to a change of director's interest notice, Mr Ohanessian snapped up 58,000 shares at an average of 35 cents per share on Wednesday.
This was the third purchase the executive has made in June and the fourth in the space of a month. All in all, the company's CEO has picked up 236,000 shares over the last few weeks, increasing his holding to ~15.5 million shares.
Broker upgrade.
One broker that would support Mr Ohanessian's decision to buy shares is Goldman Sachs. Last month it upgraded its shares to a buy rating with a 52 cents price target on valuation ground.
It said: "Whilst we acknowledge the concern around PPS's Australian segment given the loss of major client, ANZ Private, we view the recent share price underperformance as overdone. Offsetting this, we are positive on the company's recent upgrades to its platform, and its investment in additional sales and marketing capability. PPS has also continued to win new clients within its portfolio administration segment."
The broker also has buy ratings on industry peers HUB24 Ltd (ASX: HUB) and Onevue Holdings Ltd (ASX: OVH).
