Peter Hargreaves has upped his planned sale of Hargreaves Lansdown shares to £550m shortly after revealing he was selling down a stake in the business.
The Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder confirmed on Friday morning he had sold 34,375,000 shares at a discounted price of £16, raising £550m. Hargreaves now owns approximately 24.3% of the company compared to a third previously.
His intention to sell the shares had been revealed the previous evening with the Bristol billionaire aiming to bring in £500m from institutional investors via an accelerated bookbuild.
The offering would enable Hargreaves to “diversify his assets”, the first regulatory filing said. The transaction is separate to the transfer of £100m worth of Hargreaves shares that he is using to seed his eponymous charitable foundation.
The Sunday Times pegged his wealth at £3bn in its last Rich List from May 2019. His stake in Hargreaves Lansdown rallied over 4% when the Conservatives won the 2019 general election, but Hargreaves Lansdown shares suffered in January when its Q4 2019 inflows were revealed to have lagged those of rival SJP.
‘I am very proud of the business that I co-founded’
Hargreaves said in Thursday’s regulatory filing: “I have decided to sell some of my shares in Hargreaves Lansdown. This is part of a process of long-term financial planning to diversify my assets.
“I remain, and will continue to be, a substantial shareholder in Hargreaves Lansdown. I am very proud of the business that I co-founded and helped build.”
Hargreaves has previously been critical of the way the platform he founded had been tarnished by its association with the Woodford Equity Income fund suspension. He has expressed his frustration that Woodford Investment Management reportedly kept Hargreaves Lansdown in the dark over the extent of its illiquid exposure, but also said the platform beared some responsibility because it “let it go on for so long”.
In May 2019, shortly before the Woodford fund suspension, Hargreaves’ business partner Stephen Lansdown sold a £1bn stake in Hargreaves Lansdown as the stock rallied. At the time, Hargreaves Lansdown was trading around £24 a share.
Barclays is the sole global coordinator for the deal with Numis acting with the investment bank as co-bookrunner.
