Chief executive of B&M European Value Retail (BME) Simon Arora has sold shares worth £234 million.
Shares in variety goods retailer B&M European Value have been under pressure following news that on 18 Jan Arora sold 40 million shares at a price of £5.85, equivalent to £234 million.
The sale was arranged by investment bank Goldman Sachs, and was made through the family office of SSA Investments which manages the wealth of Arora and his brothers Bobby and Robin.
The disposal represents 4% of the outstanding stock and leaves the Arora’s with a 7% holding in B&M.
The recent performance of the group has been encouraging. On 6 Jan the group released an upbeat trading updated which demonstrated a fairly resilient performance.
It reported a 0.1% decline in group like for like sales in the third quarter to December with a strong performance from its French business offsetting UK like-for-like revenues which were lower due to strong prior-year comparables.
Guidance was raised with full year EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) forecast to be in the range of £605 million to £625 million against consensus forecasts of £578 million.
BUYING BY POLAR CAPITAL DIRECTORS
Polar Capital's chief executive and two non-executives have acquired shares worth over £630,000.
Gavin Rochussen, chief executive officer of specialist active fund manager Polar Capital (POLR), David Lamb, non-executive chairman and Andrew Ross, non-executive director all bought shares between 14-and-18 of January.
David Lamb and Andrew Ross acquired shares on 14 Jan worth £308,700 and £199,500 respectively.
Gavin Rochussen, acquired 20,000 shares at a price of £7.00 on 18 Jan.
The group has been successful in broadening its product offering away from technology and biotechnology by luring specialist teams away from rival firms.
These included the UK Value team comprising Georgina Hamilton and George Godber from Premier Miton (PMI:AIM), and more recently the Emerging Markets and Asia Team from Nordea Investment Management.
The shares have fallen by 17.8% over the last three months which the aforementioned individuals have clearly perceived as a good opportunity to re-examine the investment case.
