Dunelm deputy chairman Will Adderley has sold £192m of shares - a 7.4 per cent stake in the business.
The son of the retailer’s founding family decided to offload a big chunk of his stake in the business so that he could broaden his investment portfolio.
Dunelm said the 48-year-old still remained committed to the company after selling a total of 15 million shares overnight at £12.80 each.
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News of the planned sale was announced after the markets closed yesterday evening, when the share price stood at £14.08.
The sale went through following the announcement and within an hour of the markets opening today shares in the Leicestershire-headquartered homewares chain were down 7 per cent at £13.
Dunelm said: “The shares were sold to institutional investors in a placing managed by Barclays and Goldman Sachs International acting as joint global co-ordinators and Joint Bookrunners.
“Will Adderley remains fully committed to Dunelm in his role as deputy chairman as well as remaining a very substantial shareholder in the company.”
Dunelm has seen phenomenal growth during lockdown, last week reporting sales for the second half of 2020 of £719.4 million. That compared to sales for the whole of the previous 12 months of £1.06 billion.
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Over the last three weeks the share price had risen steadily from around £11.40 to £14.08, and today the company’s market value is around £2.63 billion.
Dunelm was founded in 1979 by Mr Adderley’s parents Bill and Jean on a stall on Leicester market.
Since then it has grown to become the market leader in the £13 billion 海角视频 homewares market and a key player in the £11 billion 海角视频 furniture market, employing 10,000 people.
The shares that were sold were held by WA Capital Limited – a company controlled by Will Adderley and his wife Nadine.
Mr Adderley and companies and trusts linked to his family still hold 37.8 per cent of the total shares in the company.
Dunelm said WA Capital had made an undertaking that, following completion of the placing, it would not dispose of further shares in the company for a period of at least 90 days, subject to certain exceptions.
Mr Adderley has worked for Dunelm for his whole career and joined the board in 1992. He took over the day-to-day running of the group from his father in 1996, and remained as chief executive through the group’s flotation in 2006.
He became deputy chairman in February 2011 and was reappointed chief executive for a period in September 2014.