Further to our report yesterday that the founding group of CFD broker Plus500 Ltd (LON:PLUS) had filed plans to sell about 40% of their collective holdings in Plus500, the company has announced that the placement has concluded but at a significant discount to Plus500’s closing share price from last night.
In total (see table below), the Plus500 founders – Alon Gonen, Gal Haber, Elad Ben-Izhak, Omer Elazari and Shlomi Weizmann – sold 15.5 million shares via investment banks Berenburg & Co. and Liberum Capital at a price of £6.50 per share – 13% below Plus500’s closing price Wednesday of £7.50.
In total, the sale brought in gross proceeds (before paying investment banking fees) of just over £100 million, or about USD $131 million.
Plus500 itself did not receive any proceeds from the share sale.
In London Stock Exchange trading this morning Plus500 shares reacted by trading down 16%, sitting at £6.33 as of the time of writing.
The founders have agreed with Berenberg and Liberum not to sell any further Plus500 shares for a period of at least 90 days after completion of the placing. As per below, after the current sale the founding group still owns about 22% of Plus500’s shares.
