Astarta’s principal shareholder sells 6.4% of shares in the market

Valeriy Korotkov, one of Astarta Holding’s (WSE: AST PW) principal shareholders, reduced his stake in the company by 6.4 pp to 28.8%, selling the stock on the open market and increasing the stock’s free float to 31%. Ruslan Patlavskyy: Despite the currently strong global sugar pricing environment, the sale by the principal shareholder is likely to reflect management’s critical view on the sustainability of current domestic sugar prices (USD 760/mt ex-VAT, +46% y-o-y) over the medium term, which drove Astarta’s share price up over 300% to the all-time high of PLN 78.4 (USD 26.7)/share since the IPO in 2006. In our view, Astarta’s shares are currently fairly valued by the market and offer a low 8% upside potential to our target price of USD 29.1/share.