Berkeley chairman sells shares worth $54 million in housebuilder

[October 16, 2019]  (Reuters) - Berkeley Group Plc <BKHG.L> on Wednesday said its Chairman and co-founder Anthony Pidgley had sold stock worth 42 million pounds ($53.57 million) in the open market, but he still remains the British housebuilder's largest individual shareholder.

The share sale, disclosed in a regulatory filing, showed Pidgley sold one million ordinary shares at a price of 42 pounds per share, representing a discount of 6% to the company's last close of 44.69 pounds.

Following the sale, he holds 2.7 million shares in Berkeley, leaving him with a 2.1% stake in the company.

A Berkeley spokesman declined to comment on the reason for the transaction by Pidgley, who has been the company's chairman for a decade.

Homebuilders in the United Kingdom have been weathering a Brexit storm which has dampened confidence among Britons.

UK house price growth has been flattening for months as buyers worry that the split from the European Union might bring a deeper shock, while an outright decline in prices in London has driven developers to change strategy.

However, Berkeley in September said the state of the market in London and the South East of England was particularly strong, and pricing stable, while setting itself a target of making over 3 billion pounds in profit by 2025.

In a separate filing on Wednesday, Berkeley also disclosed that Non Executive Director John Armitt sold 2,000 of the company's shares at 43.95693 pounds per share.

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka and Uday Sampath Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

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