Under-fire asset manager offloads £11m Pendragon stake
Under-fire hedge fund manager Odey Asset Management has sold almost £11m worth of shares in Nottingham-headquartered car dealership Pendragon, Sky News understands.
The 5% stake offloaded by Odey equates to around £10.8m given Pendragon’s market capitalisation of £216.53m.
According to Sky, the deal was overseen by investment bank Peel Hunt and completed on Thursday (15 June). The publication says the shares have been snapped up by new and existing Pendragon investors whose identity remains a mystery.
The asset management firm – which is on the verge of being broken up in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against its founder Crispin Odey – still holds a stake of around 4% in the Nottingham car retailer.
Last week, The Financial Times published claims that Odey had sexually assaulted or harassed 25 women over a quarter of a century.
He denies the allegations, and has since left the company.
Meanwhile, Pendragon is expecting to “comfortably outperform” previous financial expectations based on a strong set of Q1 results.
The firm, which operates the Stratstone and Evans Halshaw outlets, saw its underlying profit before tax rise by 23% to £23m for the first three months of 2023. However, this figure was impacted by spiralling interest costs, which were up by an alarming 51.7%.
