12:39 pm, May 13, 2022
Vertu Motors has concluded a £2m share buy-back purchase while its boss has increased his overall shareholding in the firm, it’s been announced.
The listed dealer group told the London Stock Exchange today (May 13) it had bought 3,960,331 shares at a price of 50.40p per share to hike its ’employee benefit trust’.
A separate announcement also revealed Vertu CEO Robert Forrester has purchased 39,297 shares.
It takes Forrester’s share to 7,483,478 of the company’s total 357.6m, meaning he now holds a 2.09 per cent share in Vertu Motors.
Earlier this week, Vertu’s chief financial officer Karen Anderson and chief operations officer David Crane had each exercised options over 30,000 ordinary shares of 10p each, that were issued in October 2012 under the Vertu Company Share Option Plan with an exercise price of 39.25 pence per Ordinary Share.
The listed dealer group announced its full-year results on Wednesday, posting a record £80.7m profit.
Forrester told Car Dealer in the video which you can watch at the top of this story: ‘£80.7m profit before tax is fantastic, and certainly gives an injection of cash into the business, which is always useful.
‘We’ve got a very strong balance sheet, we’ve now got net cash after used car stocking loans are taken into account, which is unique, actually, in our industry.
‘The really good thing we’ve managed to achieve is we’ve moved our technology on quite a long way.
‘We’ve got 50 software develops working in the business, and they’re doing great work. That omni-channel, bricks-and-clicks combination I think is going to be the proven model in the sector – I think there’s very little doubt about that.’
