Green originally bought a 24% stake in STM as part of a £1.59m purchase of new shares in the company in 2012. In July 2014, he relinquished his majority stake, selling more than 6.7 million STM shares, and has been reducing his holding ever since.
“STM is going from strength to strength and is continuing to enhance its already robust position within its sector. However, my investment with the company has now come to an end,” Green said in a statement.
“My financial interest in STM was always only ever intended to be a short-term one to provide the required funds for STM to develop and grow.”
The London-listed STM Group paid a dividend of one pence a share on 28 June, double its previous dividend of 0.5p and representing a yield of 2.82%. Its revenue in 2016 rose 8% to £17.4m although earnings per share were flat for the year.
The company has said it was expecting the UK government’s 25% tax charge on transfers to foreign pension schemes will affect 80% of its new Qrop business this year. However, it also said it expects a growth in profit compared to 2016.
Fintech move
Green went on to say that the STM stake sale would help free up resources to allow him to focus more fully on developing and expanding the firm’s fintech business.
In April, deVere launched a global e-money app called deVere Vault, aimed at internationally-mobile individuals and expats which allows users to withdraw money from any cash machine worldwide and get real-time notifications on all their transactions.
“There has been enormous international interest in deVere Vault since its launch in April. We fully expect this momentum of interest in the global e-money app to continue and build,” Green said.
“As such, we have taken the strategic decision to aggressively develop our burgeoning fintech proposition throughout 2017 and beyond as a major priority.”
DeVere expects more than 40,000 people to have downloaded the deVere Vault app by the end of this year.
“We knew it would be popular. But the phenomenal interest already shown in this pioneering global e-money app has surprised even us,” he said.
Global review
The whole deVere group is currently undergoing a strategic review of its global operations launched after the FCA ordered the firm to “immediately cease” providing advice on transferring customers’ defined benefit pensions into alternative arrangements.
While this review has been underway, deVere has closed its Miami office in the US, launched an investment bank on the offshore jurisdiction of Mauritius, opened a private bank on the Caribbean island of St Lucia, and announced a model portfolio service (MPS) in association with Pacific Asset Management.
