Green, who acquired a stake in the London-listed cross-border product specialist in March 2012, has sold just over 6.7m STM shares.
In a statement released today he said that the stake in STM was “to provide additional resources so that it could develop robust systems to enable it to offer the best QROPS administration in the market, to reduce costs and to increase efficiency, for the benefit of our clients who sought their products”.
As these objectives had now been achieved, “the next stage of the original, long-term, considered strategy was the sale of the majority of my shares. This has been completed today”, he said.
He added: “Whilst I still consider shares in STM, a truly market-leading financial products provider, to be an excellent investment opportunity, my main focus is and always has been the development of deVere Group.”
Green now holds 5,317,931 ordinary shares, representing 9.95% of the issued share capital of STM.
STM said the shares sold by Green have been acquired by certain directors and existing shareholders of STM and other investors:
The following directors on 3 July 2014 purchased these shares, all at a price of 18p per ordinary share:
Shares acquired total value resulting ord holding % of STM share cap
- Alan Kentish 1,666,667 £300,000 4,868,817 9.11%
- Colin Porter 200,000 £36,000 1,471,113 2.75%
- Julian Telling 138,889 £25,000 223,889 0.42%
- Therese Neish 250,000 £45,000 322,556 0.60%
Arron Banks, who, together with his related companies, is a substantial existing shareholder in STM, on 3 July 2014 acquired 3,494,747 shares, subject to regulatory approval. His resulting holding is 8,745,262 ordinary Shares representing 16.36% of the issued share capital of STM.
STM chief executive Colin Porter said: “Nigel Green’s significant investment in STM some two years ago was timely and allowed STM the resources to develop and implement a growth strategy in the pensions administration market and in niche markets for its own life assurance company, STM Life.”
Green originally bought a 24% stake in STM as part of a £1.59m purchase of new shares in the company.
Earlier this year, STM posted a pre-tax profit of £269,000 (€323,000, $447,000) for 2013, after a loss of £4m in 2012.
