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Simon Nixon, the founder of moneysupermarket.com, will reap a windfall of up to £190 million when the price comparison website lists on the London Stock Exchange this month.
The company said yesterday that its shares would be priced between 170p and 210p, valuing the entire business at between £841 million and £1 billion.
Mr Nixon, who started the company in 1993 with just £4,000 before transforming it into moneysupermarket.com six years later, will sell 60.3 million shares when the group floats in the last week of this month.
If moneysupermarket.com floats at 210p, he will gain £126.6 million and potentially an additional £64.2 million if the flotation is oversubscribed, giving him a total of £190.8 million.
Duncan Cameron, previously a majority shareholder in the business alongside Mr Nixon, will sell his remaining 5 per cent stake, netting him up to £47 million.
This will add to the £162 million that Mr Cameron gained last month when moneysupermarket.com acquired most of his shareholding in the group.
Some of the £180 million that moneysupermarket.com hopes to raise from its listing will be used to pay debt used to buy Mr Cameron’s stake. Mr Nixon and Mr Cameron have not spoken to each other since 2001 after a disagreement over strategy. The company has been considering listing since 2003, but has been prevented from floating because of “difficult” talks regarding the sale of Mr Cameron’s stake.
Moneysupermarket.com will offer 203 million shares on the market, 41 per cent of the business. Mr Nixon will retain about 50 per cent of the group, giving him a net worth of £500 million if investors buy at the top of the range. Mr Nixon has agreed not to sell down his 50 per cent stake for three years. Senior managers at moneysupermarket.com will also retain a shareholding in the business.
The company has already made Mr Nixon a millionaire. Last year he was rewarded with a £15 million special dividend, as part of a total of £20.9 million paid to directors in the group.
In 2005, directors were awarded an £8.4 million special dividend. Including special dividend payments, pretax profits at moneysupermarket.com have fallen from £15.9 million in 2004 to £14.7 million in 2005 and £11.7 million last year.
The special dividend paid to directors will be reduced significantly once moneysupermarket.com becomes a public company.
Over the past three years, revenues have also risen significantly, from £59.7 million in 2004 to £68 million the following year and £104.5 million in 2006.
During the first three months of its new financial year, moneysupermarket.com reported that revenues had risen from £23.7 million to £39.6 million, while pretax profits increased from £4.1 million to £9.6 million.
The company runs two price comparison sites: moneysupermarket. com allows consumers to compare prices on financial products including mortgages and credit cards; travelsupermarket.com allows shoppers to examine a range of holiday options.
Moneysupermarket.com said yesterday that it had appointed Michael Wemms, the former retail director of Tesco, as its senior independent director, to join the nonexecutive chairman, Gerald Corbett. Mr Corbett was previously the chief executive of Rail-track and chairman of Woolworths. Mr Wemms is also a nonexecutive at Coles Group, the retailer, and Inch-cape, the car dealer.
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