Lenovo Group Ltd., the world’s biggest maker of personal computers, fell the most in more than two months in Hong Kong trading after Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing cut his stake in the company.
Lenovo dropped as much as 2.9 percent, headed for the biggest decline since Oct. 8.
The stock fell 2.6 percent to HK$7.12 as of the noon trading break Thursday on the Hong Kong exchange, trimming its gains in the past six months to 9.7 percent. Shares did rally in the afternoon.
However, the drop resumed Friday as shares fell 1.8 percent to HK$7.18.
One Hong Kong dollar is worth 13 U.S. cents.
Yang sold 29 million shares at an average price of HK$7.04 each Dec. 24, reducing his stake in the Beijing-based company to 9.04 percent from 9.32 percent, Lenovo said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
“The share price has gone up quite a bit in the past few months, and Yang might be looking to pocket some gains,” Louis Tse, a Hong Kong-based director of VC Brokerage Ltd., said by phone today. Any action by Yang, who is also Lenovo’s chairman, could be price-sensitive, he said.
Lenovo overtook Hewlett-Packard Co. as the biggest PC maker in the third quarter, accounting for 15.7 percent of shipments, according to Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc. Research firm IDC’s findings differed slightly.
Yang has spent his career at Lenovo and recently shared with employees a bonus he received from the company for growth in 2011.
Having started at the bottom in Lenovo’s food chain as a salesman peddling PCs across parts of China from his bicycle, Yang decided to share a $3 million bonus he received for Lenovo’s increasing success with junior-level employees.
After being paid the bonus last month, Yang decided to present what has been called a “Yuanqing special award” – a check worth on average about $300.
Lenovo operates its executive headquarters in Morrisville with most operations based in China, where the company was launched.
(Bloomberg contributed to this report.)
