Peter Hargreaves has continued trimming his stake in Hargreaves Lansdown, the platform giant he co-founded with Stephen Lansdown, by selling £300m worth of shares.
The sale, which accounts for roughly one sixth of his holding, was confirmed by an RNS filing on Wednesday evening which showed his stake falling from 23.9% to 19.8%.
Hargreaves (pictured) has been gradually reducing his stake in Hargreaves as part of his “long-term financial planning”, selling £550m worth of shares weeks before the pandemic kicked off.
With just shy of 94 million shares, worth £1.4bn, Hargreaves remains the D2C giant’s largest shareholder, but this latest disposal brings him closer to Nick Train’s firm Lindsell Train which owns 67 million shares or a 14% stake in the business.
Hargreaves’ former business partner Lansdown owns around 5.7% in the platform giant. Lansdown has also been gradually paring back his stake in the D2C firm, which he founded alongside Hargreaves in 1981, cashing in on £100m worth of shares during the November vaccine rally and ditching £160m worth of shares last April as markets recovered from the Covid crash.
Hargreaves Lansdown was the biggest faller of the FTSE 100 yesterday with its shares closing out the day at £15.37 each.
Despite its shares rising sharply off the back of the Gamestop rally, peaking at £17.80 on 27 January, its shares are now up only 3% from £14.99 at the start of the year.
