It's been a bit of an indecisive day for ASX shares so far this Tuesday. At the time of writing, the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) has slipped by around 0.14%, despite stints in both positive and negative territory over the session thus far. But let's talk about one All Ords share that is faring far worse than that.
The Playside Studios Ltd (ASX: PLY) share price is having a shocker today. Playside shares closed at 84 cents each yesterday. But this morning, the company opened at just 81 cents before falling as low as 72 cents a share – a loss worth more than 14% at the time.
At present, the gaming company and owner of the 'Dumb Ways to Die' franchise's share price has recovered a little but remains down 8.93% at the time of writing at 76 cents a share.
It's fairly easy to see where this selling pressure is coming from today.
This morning, just before market open, Playside Studios released an ASX announcement that revealed that the company's three co-founders and largest shareholders have "agreed" to sell down a significant stake in Playside.
All Ords stock plummets as co-founders sell major stake
Gerry Sakkas (who is also Playside's CEO), Mark Goulopoulos and Aaron Pasias have all just unloaded a significant chunk of ownership in Playside. Sakkas has sold 14 million shares in the company, while Goulopoulos and Pasias have unloaded 13 million shares each. That's 40 million shares all up.
Between the three of them, this sell-down represents 9.8% of the company's issued shares, leaving the trio with a 48.9% stake in Playside.
The sale was reportedly undertaken as a block trade and was priced at 75 cents per share sold. That means Sakkas, Goulopoulos and Pasias have just pocketed $10.5 million and $9.75 million respectively.
Here's how CEO Sakkas explained this move to investors:
The sell down significantly increases the free float of the Company, and we are pleased to welcome several new investors to the register at an exciting time in our journey.
This sale comes at a fortuitous time for the company. Earlier this month, Playside released its latest earnings results for the first half of the 2024 financial year.
These earnings showed that Playside was able to grow its revenues by a whopping 119% from $16.5 million over the first half of FY2023 (1H23) to $36.2 million. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) swung from a loss of $2.7 million in 1H23 to a positive $12.2 million this half.
The company also moved from a net loss of $3.8 million in 1H23 to a net profit after tax (NPAT) of $9 million this half.
Investors had already got a bit of a preview of these numbers when Playside released a quarterly cash flow update at the end of January.
Since that report was made public, this ASX All Ords share had risen more than 36% as of yesterday's closing share price. That probably gives us some indication as to the timing of this founder share sale.
Despite today's sell-off, the Payside share price remains up 125% over the past 12 months.
