Sivers Semiconductors: Insider Sales and Short Seller Allegations Overshadow a Promising Photonics Deal

Sivers Semiconductors stock crashed 34% from a €10.23 record high after a short squeeze reversed, insider sold entire stake, and short seller alleged questionable revenue.

The June 15 shareholder meeting was already shaping up to be a pivotal moment for Sivers Semiconductors. Then came a week that turned the stock into a battlefield of competing narratives. By Friday, the shares had crashed 34% from a record high of €10.23 touched just two days earlier, ending the session at €6.70 – a 15.79% single-day rout. The dramatic swing erased weeks of gains but still left the stock up nearly 44% over the past 30 days, a reflection of the extreme forces at play.

The rally had been ignited by two positive catalysts back-to-back. On June 1, Sivers was admitted to the OMX Stockholm Benchmark Index and the MSCI Sweden Small-Cap Index, forcing passive funds to buy the stock. With short interest standing at 17% of the free float – up from just 1.6% in March – the rebalancing triggered a violent short squeeze. Nordea Bank had hiked margins on bear certificates to as high as 228.5%, underscoring the cost of betting against the Swedish photonics specialist. The squeeze drove shares to a 52-week high midweek before the selling resumed.

The second catalyst came on June 2, when Sivers announced a strategic collaboration with GlobalFoundries. The company’s laser arrays are to be integrated into reference designs for AI infrastructure, tapping what Sivers calls an addressable market of $25 billion for pluggable optics by 2030. The deal was greeted with enthusiasm by retail traders, but analysts took a cooler view. Redeye kept its price target at €6.20 with a “Neutral” rating, and Swedish business daily Affärsvärlden noted that GlobalFoundries had already presented the partnership a month earlier, suggesting the hype was overblown. No concrete volumes, delivery dates, or revenue targets were disclosed.

The euphoria proved fragile. On the same day as the GlobalFoundries announcement, news emerged that Harish Krishnaswamy, head of the wireless division, had sold his entire stake – worth roughly 100 million Swedish kronor. Even more alarming for long-term holders, the institutional investor Cicero Fonder liquidated its entire position of 5.75 million shares, estimated at 452 million kronor. Cicero had held 3.5% of the capital as of September 2025. The exit of a longstanding anchor investor sent a clear message: not everyone was willing to wait for the shareholder vote.

Compounding the damage was a report from short seller Ningi Research, which alleged that approximately 97 million kronor – representing about 31% of Sivers’ reported 2025 revenue – came from questionable sources. Ningi claimed that some sales were booked from products never produced or that government research grants were improperly recorded as commercial revenue. The firm also cited production partner WIN Semi, which reportedly declined to begin series production of the indium phosphide laser diodes due to reliability concerns. The allegations are just that – allegations – but they were enough to prompt US law firm Rosen Law to launch an investigation into possible securities violations. Separately, the Swedish prosecutor’s office, through investigator Jonas Myrdal, is looking into a potential information leak: the stock had surged roughly 48 hours before the official announcement of a planned secondary listing on Nasdaq New York, a pattern Myrdal described as “striking” and reminiscent of earlier pump-and-dump cases.

The underlying financials offer little comfort. First-quarter net revenue came in at 61.9 million kronor, down 21.5% year on year. The operating result was a loss of 41.5 million kronor, and operating cash flow was negative 49.2 million. Cash reserves dwindled to 26.6 million kronor. The company blames the decline on the US government shutdown in the fourth quarter of 2025 and unfavorable exchange rates. On a brighter note, the qualified opportunity pipeline jumped 77% to roughly $799 million, and CEO Vickram Vathulya points to strong demand from AI infrastructure and satellite communications. Management maintains its 2026 revenue growth forecast and projects a long-term average annual growth rate of 25–30% from 2027 onward. Profitability, however, is not expected before 2028.

The shareholder meeting on June 15 will test whether investors share that optimism. The board is asking for authority to issue up to 53.8 million new shares – a dilution of roughly 15% – to fund organic growth, potential acquisitions, and the Nasdaq dual listing. The meeting was delayed from its original date to allow the company to restate its 2024 and 2025 accounts under US PCAOB auditing standards, a prerequisite for the New York listing. That restatement has already revealed deeper losses. Also on the agenda is a long-term employee stock option plan covering up to 7 million options.

Ahead of the vote, which must be cast by mail by June 9, the stock remains a battleground. The technical forces that drove it to a record high have faded, while the credibility questions – insider exits, a criminal probe, and a short seller’s accusations – linger. The next quarterly report is due August 6. Until then, the decision rests with shareholders who must choose whether to give management the firepower it says it needs to execute on a vision that hinges on 2027 as a “transformative year.”