London Stock Exchange chief executive Clara Furse is the latest among several company directors who are transferring or selling their shares on the eve of the unpopular changes to UK’s capital gains tax regime.
The share deals co-incide with the rush by many entrepreneurs and business owners to complete the sale of their businesses before the government's abolition of taper relief on CGT, which will increase the tax rate by up to 80% from Sunday, The Daily Telegraph reports.
The credit crisis has done nothing to dampen the hyperactivity which has reached 532 deals, involving the sale of British companies worth less than £315m since the start of the year – the busiest dealmaking since the peak of the dotcom boom in 2000, according to industry advisers Dealogic.
Furse sold 425,165 LSE shares at the same time as her husband Richard bought 425,165 of them, while Rob Templeman, Debenhams chief executive transferred 250,000 shares to his wife; the directors of Halfords sold a number of their shares; and Gordon Page, Cobham chairman, sold 1.7m shares but pledged in a stock exchange statement to buy them back within 30 days.
Further reading:
Lord Sainsbury manoeuvre saves £27m in CGT
reader comments