Moneysupermarket boss cashes in

March 17, 2017

by: Megan Boxall and Tom Dines, Investors Chronicle

The outgoing chief executive of Moneysupermarket.com has banked himself — and his wife — a nice retirement fund. Together, Peter and Sarah Plumb have sold 544,580 of their shares to cash in a total of £1.84m. They both retain a minority stake in the company.

Mr Plumb took the top job at the price comparison website in 2009, succeeding founder Simon Nixon. During his tenure the group’s share price has risen fivefold. Mr Plumb’s place at the helm will be taken by Mark Lewis, a retail director at John Lewis, who previously worked as a managing director at eBay.

Analysts tend to agree that Mr Lewis’s digital experience will be invaluable in this new phase, while Liberum analyst Ian Whittaker thinks investment in Moneysupermarket’s technology platform could prove crucial to growing and protecting margins in the future.

Berendsen‘s chief executive, James Drummond, has significantly upped his stake in the company, purchasing 122,840 shares for more than £1m. It’s a bold move for Mr Drummond, who joined in August 2015. This latest transaction dwarfs his previous two share purchases, made via two separate tranches of 10,000 shares in 2015 and another in 2016.

The shares fell more than 10 per cent following the release of the textile group’s most recent results earlier this month. Operational problems have affected the UK business, but an ambitious plan is under way to get the business back on track.

The transaction makes Mr Drummond the second-largest shareholder on the board, overtaking chairman Iain Ferguson, who owns 125,000 shares. He does, however, still lag behind finance director Kevin Quinn, who owns just over 205,000 shares.