Sivers Semiconductors: Executive and Fund Offload Entire Stakes as Stock Retreats from Record High

Sivers Semiconductors stock drops 6% as top manager Harish Krishnaswamy and institutional holder Cicero Fonder sell entire stakes, raising doubts despite AI photonics partnership.

The euphoria that lifted Sivers Semiconductors to a 52-week high of €10.23 on Monday has given way to a sharp reversal. Two major stakeholders – a top manager and a Swedish institution – have sold out completely, sending the stock down more than 6% on Thursday to €7.87.

Harish Krishnaswamy, who heads the company’s wireless business, liquidated his entire holding of 1.39 million shares at around 71 Swedish kronor each, pocketing roughly 100 million kronor. The size and timing of the divestment – a full exit by a member of the operating leadership – is often read by the market as a lack of confidence in the near-term outlook. His departure from the shareholder register was recorded in Sweden’s insider database on Wednesday.

Hard on the heels of that disclosure, Cicero Fonder, a long-standing institutional holder, also cleared out its entire stake. The fund dumped 5.75 million shares, equivalent to about 1.8% of Sivers’ share capital, in a transaction valued at an estimated 452 million kronor. The double sell-off has amplified the pressure on a stock that had enjoyed a breathtaking rally: it still shows a weekly gain of nearly 20% and has more than tripled in the past three months, partly fuelled by artificial-intelligence hype.

That AI enthusiasm was stoked earlier this week when Sivers announced a strategic partnership with GlobalFoundries to develop advanced silicon photonics for AI data centres. The collaboration sits at the heart of the booming co-packaged optics (CPO) market, which analysts expect to reach over $80 billion by 2027. Sivers has already locked in production capacity to serve that opportunity, and management is working to exploit it.

On the operational front, the picture is more uneven. Revenue in the first quarter of the fiscal year came in at just 62 million kronor, while the company posted a net loss of 42.7 million kronor. Delays in US defence budgets and adverse currency movements have weighed on recent sales, though the project pipeline swelled by 77% quarter-on-quarter to nearly $800 million. The simultaneous exit of both an insider and a key institutional investor suggests that near-term hurdles are worrying even those closest to the business.

Sivers is nevertheless pursuing a dual listing on the Nasdaq in New York, a move designed to tap a deeper pool of semiconductor investors. It also entered the OMX Stockholm Benchmark Index at the start of June, giving it additional visibility among Nordic fund managers. Whether that broader exposure can rebuild confidence after the recent selling remains an open question. For now, the market wants concrete orders from the AI photonics deal – not just promises – before it will fully trust the narrative again.