Mondays are tough at the best of times. For WiseTech and its co-founder, Richard White, however, yesterday was a little harder after a raid by the Australian Federal Police.
ASIC and the AFP politely but firmly made their way into WiseTech’s Sydney offices on Monday to execute a search warrant.
After asking everyone to politely push themselves back from their desks and to keep their hands where they could be seen, the federal sleuths revealed they were looking for specific documents relating to an ongoing probe.
The investigation surrounds alleged share trading activity by then-CEO Richard White and three other WiseTech employees between late 2024 to early 2025.
WiseTech issued a statement saying that “as far as it is aware, no charges have been laid against any person and there are no allegations against the company itself”. It added that it would cooperate fully with any investigation.
An investigation back in February by a string of the AFR’s heaviest investigative hitters revealed that White had offloaded around $200 million in shares. This was at a time before Richard White’s extra-curricular indiscretions with staffers were yet to come fully into light, and allegedly during “blackout periods” when guidelines imposed by the company typically advise directors do not offload their stock over proximity to company results reporting.
White told the AFR at the time he had sought independent legal advice before making said trades.
The press release regarding the raid was released an hour before trading began for the Tuesday session. Before the open, WiseTech Global traded at a smidge over $85 a share.
Update, 12pm AEDT: It’s bad. Real bad.
As soon as the market opened, punters were offloading WiseTech like its customers offload shipping containers. Within an hour, the market was well and truly dumping WiseTech shares. $85 a share quickly became $70 a share – a 15% battering.
The dead cat that is ASX:WTC continues to bounce its way through the session, recovering slightly to $72 a share by midday. See below for the horror.
