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Tim Warrillow, chief executive and co-founder of drinks company Fever-Tree (LON:FEVR), has cashed in £29 million of his stake as shares reached record highs.
Warrillow sold his shares for £19.25 each after shares saw a surge of 77 percent for half year revenues. News of the sale resulted in its shares rocketing 23 percent to £21.56.
“There remains considerable demand from institutions both in UK and US for sizeable blocks of Fever-Tree shares and therefore Tim took the decision to provide some further liquidity in the register in response to this.” said a spokesperson for Warrillow.
Fever-Tree has reaped the benefits from the growing popularity of gin and tonics, which boosted sales in Europe by a massive 64 percent. The UK remains a key market for the drinks company, with revenues up a total of 113 percent.
The increase in shares was met by celebration for Warrillow.
“We are delighted to report another strong performance in the first half of 2017, continuing the momentum seen in 2016. We achieved growth in all our regions, driven by further distribution gains and underlying rate of sales growth as the two key trends of premiumisation and mixability continue to gather pace globally.
“We continue to invest and improve our infrastructure, relationships with key suppliers and customers as well as adding to our senior team. The strength of our brand and first mover advantage means we are well positioned as the opportunity for premium mixers continues to gather momentum across our key markets,” he said.
Neil Wilson, a senior market analyst at ETX Capital, said he could predict some tougher times ahead for the company.
“Fever-Tree will have to continue to grow at this clip to justify the valuations [and] maintaining this level of growth in the UK will be tough as this market could deteriorate over the next couple of years if there is a hit to consumer spending from inflation and any Brexit-related slowdown.”