The share price of Playtech (AIM: PTEC), which develops software platforms for online gaming sites, has risen 52% this year, and last year fell by just 5%, compared with a negligible rise this year and a 24% fall last year by the FTSE index.
Towards the end of last week, Playtech announced that, through two subsidiaries, Morgan Stanley had reached a 5.2% holding in the company. On Friday, it announced that Morgan Stanley had already reduced its holding to 4.3%
In the past month, trading in Playtech has been volatile, with the price ranging between a low of £4.00 and a high of £4.82 --- a 21% variation. Assuming that Morgan Stanley accumulated the shares over the past month, it may have made a profit of millions of dollars on its transactions.
Another shareholder in Playtech that has sold shares recently is Toscafund Asset Management, a British hedge fund, which sold shares for a gross $7 million, reducing its holding in the company to 12%. Playetch has a market cap of $1.9 billion, a value partly affected by the weakness of the US dollar against sterling.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on June 14, 2009
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