Just three weeks ago, UK Conservative Party Treasurer, Lord Michael Spencer and his private family company, IPGL, sold £45 million worth of Icap shares at 440p each. Today that sale would have raised only £30 million.
London’s Evening Standard reports that Icap released a “shock profits warning” only weeks after Spencer, the firm’s founder and chief executive, sold a huge chunk of his shares.
After the announcement today by Icap that profits for the year to March would now be some £20 million less than it forecast in November, the share priced dropped 18% to 300p, having already dropped by a third in the last month.
Spencer, a close friend of Tory party leader David Cameron, is expected to have to explain the timing of this trade to regulators. The Times reports that Spencer has strongly denied improper conduct. The sale of Spencer’s shares reduced his holdings in Icap from 18.4% to 17% and he reportedly suffered huge losses on his remaining stake in the company.
Read the London Evening Standard article
