Ripples from the boardroom row at Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI), which led to the suspension of chairman Marcel Golding this week, have proved positive for at least one party - ailing electronics company Ellies.
After Golding's suspension, HCI's share price fell 1.9% this week, but Ellies share price rocketed 39%, before retreating 5.2% on Friday.
This is because it emerged in court papers that Golding was keen on HCI buying a 25% stake in Ellies - the root of his alleged "gross misconduct" - which investors saw as a positive sign.
HCI's board claims Golding bought R24-million worth of Ellies shares "without authorisation" - but Golding claims this is just a pretext to force him out the business so that HCI's 32% shareholder Sactwu can direct news coverage at HCI's television company, e.tv.
Anthony Clark of Vunani Securities said in a note to clients: "W hatever the story , HCI trying to take a stake in Ellies has some merit."
Ellies's share price fell from over R10 in May last year to 95c earlier this week - before Thursday's meteoric gain, its biggest since 2007.
Golding said that after identifying Ellies as a good investment last year, "I waited for the share to drop to the R4 level in March 2014, and at that point, instructed Investec to build our holding incrementally". But Ellies' share price continued to fall below R4 to its current level of R1.27.
In the court papers, Golding admitted: "I, like many others, got the timing wrong."
Ellies released poor financial results for the year to April as its after-tax profit fell 68% to R71-million. By contrast, HCI's share price has risen 3.4% over the past year despite a 23% drop in its after-tax profit.