Invesco and Jupiter are among the asset managers who have taken a hit following the collapse of Thomas Cook, with the former losing £2.2m over the travel agent’s final turbulent month.
Britain’s oldest holiday company fell into liquidation in the early hours on Monday morning after failing to find an extra £200m to keep the lights on.
The company’s demise leaves 21,000 jobs at risk and approximately 150,000 UK holidaymakers stranded abroad.
Thomas Cook’s collapse is also unwelcome news for Invesco, which owned roughly 59 million shares in the business representing a 3.94% stake.
Invesco sustained a £590,000 loss last Friday as shares in the company slumped to an all-time low of 3.45p on what became Thomas Cook’s final day of trading. Over one month its investment in the holiday company has resulted in a £2.2m loss.
Jupiter took its stake in Thomas Cook down from 5.04% to below 5% last Thursday. Prior to that it held 75 million shares in the firm.
Barnett sold out of Thomas Cook
Invesco had been the largest institutional shareholder in the 178-year old travel company until recently, owning a whopping 13.75% in the business.
But it began reducing this position on 12 July when Thomas Cook came clean that it would need a cash injection of £750m to see it through the slower winter season.
Invesco cut its position to 11.46% the same day and to 8.54% the following day, RNS filings for the company show. Weeks later it more than halved this position.
Invesco UK equities head Mark Barnett was among the firm’s managers that offloaded shares in the travel company. Thomas Cook previously featured in his Perpetual Income & Growth trust and Edinburgh Investment Trust, with each trust holding around 0.20% positions at the end of June, as well as his £2.71bn Invesco Income fund.
Hargreaves hit
D2C giant Hargreaves Lansdown was also among the travel company’s biggest shareholders, owning 3.43% of the business.
The firm’s head of communications Danny Cox clarified that these shares are not held in Hargreaves own funds but are owned by individual investors who have bought on an execution only basis.
Aberdeen Standard Investments and Aviva Investors also hold shares in Thomas Cook but this exposure comes from passive investments only. The firms held 3.49% and 2.05% respectively.
