The executive management team of Russian real estate firm Raven Property Group (RAV) were out in force last week after the general meeting approved their purchase of shares from Invesco Funds as part of a newly-formed joint venture company Raven Holdings Limited.
The directors, who previously owned 58.4 million shares representing 9.98% of the firm’s ordinary share capital, bought up 46.7 million shares or 8% of the outstanding capital at 29p per share for a total consideration of £13.5 million.
The deals leave Invesco Funds and Invesco Asset Management with roughly 110 million shares or 18.8% of the share capital.
Raven, which invests in warehouses in Moscow, St Petersburg and other Russian cities, owns 9.85 million of its own shares which it intends to cancel.
SELLING DOWN
In contrast, the chief executives of specialist asset manager Ashmore (ASHM), challenger law firm Keystone Law (KEYS:AIM), web selling platform The Hut Group (THG) and advertising technology firm Tremor International (TRMR:AIM) all offloaded stock in their businesses over the last few weeks.
Mark Coombs, founder and chief executive of Ashmore, cashed in 5 million shares in the firm at the end of April for 400p apiece, netting himself a cool £20 million.
In total, Coombs has sold 33.5 million shares in the last year for more than £140 million, although he still owns over 220 million shares or 31% of the outstanding equity worth a comfortable £866 million at the current market price.
Keystone Law founder and chief executive James Knight sold 1.5 million shares at a price of 630p last week, netting himself just under £9.5 million.
The deal marks the biggest sale of stock by Knight since the firm listed, and leaves him with a balance of just over 9 million shares or 28.95% of the outstanding equity, worth close to £60 million at today’s price.
The Hut Group’s founder Matthew Moulding also disposed of stock in the firm he brought to market with the sale of 350,000 shares at 667p for a total consideration of £2.33 million.
Moulding still owns over 60 million shares in THG or 6.2% of the outstanding equity, worth £365 million at current prices.
Finally, Tremor chief executive Ofer Druker sold a total of 517,161 shares in the business he joined in 2017 in two tranches towards the end of April at an average of 720p, raising a healthy £3.72 million.
The sale takes Drufer’s shareholding down to roughly 2.8 million shares or just over 2% of the company, worth £19.2 million at current prices.
