GVC shares tumble as CEO, chairman sell bulk of their stakes

UK-listed gambling operator GVC Holdings suffered a double-digit fall in its share price on Friday after the company’s two senior executives sold off the bulk of their stakes in GVC.

GVC shares closed out Friday’s trading on the London Stock Exchange down nearly 14% to 588.5p, after trading as low as 557p before staging a minor rally. The sell-off came just days after GVC delivered a fairly impressive financial report card for 2018, although mergers & acquisition costs resulted in the company’s third straight year of net losses.

The sell-off happened following news that GVC CEO Kenneth Alexander and chairman Lee Feldman had divested themselves of nearly 3m GVC shares. Alexander (pictured) parted with 2.06m shares at a discounted price of £6.66 (cue devilish laughter from somewhere offstage), earning him £13.7m and leaving him holding 666,666 shares in his company (cue more devilish laughter).

Feldman sold 900k shares at the same discounted price, earning him a £6m payday, and leaving him with 287,408 shares in the company.