Berkeley chairman sells shares worth $54 million in housebuilder

(Reuters) – Berkeley Group Plc on Wednesday said its Chairman and co-founder Anthony Pidgley had sold stock worth 42 million pounds ($53.57 million) in the open market, but he still remains the British housebuilder’s largest individual shareholder.

The share sale, disclosed in a regulatory filing, showed Pidgley sold one million ordinary shares at a price of 42 pounds per share, representing a discount of 6% to the company’s last close of 44.69 pounds.

Following the sale, he holds 2.7 million shares in Berkeley, leaving him with a 2.1% stake in the company.

A Berkeley spokesman declined to comment on the reason for the transaction by Pidgley, who has been the company’s chairman for a decade.

Homebuilders in the United Kingdom have been weathering a Brexit storm which has dampened confidence among Britons.

UK house price growth has been flattening for months as buyers worry that the split from the European Union might bring a deeper shock, while an outright decline in prices in London has driven developers to change strategy.

However, Berkeley in September said the state of the market in London and the South East of England was particularly strong, and pricing stable, while setting itself a target of making over 3 billion pounds in profit by 2025.

In a separate filing on Wednesday, Berkeley also disclosed that Non Executive Director John Armitt sold 2,000 of the company’s shares at 43.95693 pounds per share.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.