End of ‘lock up’: Mike Lynch can sell his Darktrace shares
Tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares can start selling off their £895m stake in cybersecurity firm Darktrace this week.
Darktrace went public in a blockbuster £1.7billion float in April and within months had joined the FTSE 100. After floating at £1.7billion, it is now worth £5.6billion.
A 180-day block on insider investors from selling shares in newly listed companies, also known as a ‘lock-up’ period, expires on Wednesday.
This will allow Lynch and Bacares to offload their combined 15.98 per cent stake if they choose to. Lynch is fighting extradition to the US, where he faces fraud charges over the £7billion sale of his firm Autonomy to Hewlett Packard a decade ago.
He denies all the allegations. Shares plunged 21 per cent last Monday after Peel Hunt brokers pointed to a ‘disconnect’ between its value and the money it could make.
The end of the lock-up period could see its share price pushed even lower if major investors dump their stakes.
Members o f Lynch’s venture capital firm Invoke, an early backer of Darktrace, will also be able to sell shares for the first time.
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