Moa director explains share price jump

The shares have risen 7.3 per cent since the start of the year and are up 138 per cent on a year ago. Photo / Greg Bowker

Industry sales volumes down overall but consumers favouring quality over quantity.

Moa Group executive director David Poole, who heads up the brewer's Australian sales team, has been buying shares on market in the company's recent share rally which prompted a 'please explain' from the stock market operator today.

Shareholder notices to the NZX show Poole bought 23,019 shares for $31,323 on July 12 and 127,000 for $81,142 on June 29. He now owns 374,323 shares in the company as a trustee of Poole Investment Trust.

Poole is also a related party of Moa's cornerstone shareholder, Business Bakery which owns 16 per cent of the brewer.

The shares rose 14 per cent to 84 cents today, and had jumped as much as 48 per cent since June 28, triggering a price enquiry from the stock market operator.

In a letter published to the NZX, Moa's chief financial officer Geoff Copstick said the Blenheim company "continues to fully comply with all NZX Listing rules including the continuous disclosure of material information."

The shares have risen 7.3 per cent since the start of the year and are up 138 per cent on a year ago. They remain well below the initial public offering price of $1.25 achieved when Moa floated on the NZX in 2012.