Inmarsat’s senior management have significantly cut their holdings in the satellite operator following a spate of share sales during May.
On May 21, chairman and CEO Andrew Sukawaty sold more than half his stake in the company, offloading 432,000 shares…
Inmarsat’s senior management have significantly cut their holdings in the satellite operator following a spate of share sales during May.
On May 21, chairman and CEO Andrew Sukawaty sold more than half his stake in the company, offloading 432,000 shares at £7.516 per share. He retains 390,534 Inmarsat ordinary shares. On the same day, CFO Rick Medlock sold 211,500 shares via a spouse sale and now holds 248,163 shares.
Other senior management that sold shares on May 21 include company secretary Alison Horrocks, who sold almost all of her 300,000 shares, chief technical officer Eugene Jilg, who sold 500,000 of his 600,987 shares, Debbie Jones, senior vice president of corporate development, who sold just under half of her 204,604 shares, and Inmarsat’s General Counsel Rupert Pearce who sold 900,000 shares and retains 264,604. A week earlier, Inmarsat COO Perry Melton had sold 47,807 shares of his 147,807 shares at £7.918 per share.
Meanwhile, John Rennocks and Stephen Davidson, both independent non-executive directors in the company, sold all their Inmarsat shares, with the latter’s spouse then purchasing 1,500 ordinary shares.
Some City of London analysts have tied the sales to speculation that Inmarsat may be on the verge of a takeover bid from its largest shareholder Harbinger Capital Partners but one banker told SatelliteFinance that this was unlikely. He pointed to the fact that Inmarsat’s share price has outperformed the sector by around 17% over the past year and has risen by 42.41% in the last 12 months.
On May 11, Inmarsat reported its Q1 2010 results, announcing a 12.3% year-on-year rise in Inmarsat Global revenue to US$181.2m and 11.8% rise in total revenue to US$281.5m. Q1 EBITDA was up 22.8% from US$117.3m in 2009 to US$144.1m in 2010. The company also reported a big jump in Q1 free cash flow from US$42.6m in 2009 to US$104.7m in 2010.
