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Agencies & People

Purplebricks shareholders exercise options worth £1.5m

But what does the move say about the future of the company?

Nigel Lewis

Purplebricks’ three-year rise from promising hybrid start-up to today’s AIM-listed City star with a turnover of £7.2m has emboldened several of its key shareholders to exercise their options.

Ten days ago five people between them made the move including founder Michael Bruce’s wife Isabel, finance director Matthew Farrow, chief information officer David Kavanagh and chief marketing officer Joby Russell.

Between them they exercised options totalling 1.36 million shares although it is not known how many of these were transferred to their ownership, or instead sold immediately. But assuming they were all disposed of then it would net the individuals an estimated £1.5 million between them at the current share price of £1.28p.

david kavanagh purplebricksPrior to this move, several people on the list have exercised and then sold previously-acquired share options including David Kavanagh (pictured) who joined the company in January 2013 and in September this year sold 69,500 shares.

Aim-listed companies like Purplebricks are notoriously difficult to read because although they report like PLCs, they remain relatively small companies run by a coterie of founding directors and senior staff.

Nevertheless, the share option activity currently under way can viewed through several lenses. One is that the standard three-year share option ‘lock in’ has expired and people like Kavanagh are cashing in while the going is good.

Another scenario is that senior figures in Purplebricks may feel there’s some rough trading conditions ahead and want to sell their options before the share price subsequently falls.
Although the company’s share price has performed well since listing on AIM, over the past three months it has fallen from a high of £1.37p a share to £1.28p.

October 27, 2016

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