UK bank Aldermore’s 2 biggest shareholders sell 15 percent stake

<span class="focusParagraph articleLocation”>Aldermore Group Plc’s two largest shareholders together sold a 15 percent stake in the UK bank for 145.5 million pounds ($224 million) on Thursday, joint bookrunners RBC Capital Markets and Deutsche Bank said.

Private equity firm AnaCap raised 116.9 million pounds by selling 40.9 million shares, while Toscafund raised 28.6 million pounds through a sale of 10 million shares, Deutsche Bank said on Friday.

AnaCap holds about 40 percent in Aldermore after the sale, Deutsche Bank said.

The private equity firm was Aldermore’s largest shareholder with a 52.9 percent stake as of March 13 and Toscafund was the second largest with about 7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

AnaCap was one of the founding investors of Aldermore, which is among a handful of London-listed banks positioned to challenge the dominance of Britain’s big five lenders.

Aldermore said last month that its profit more than doubled in the first half of the year.

Aldermore’s shares fell as much as 3.4 percent to 284.7 pence on Friday on the London Stock Exchange. The stock was the largest percentage loser on the FTSE mid-250 index.

Up to Thursday’s close, the stock had gained 53.5 percent since its debut on March 10.

($1 = 0.65 pounds)

(Reporting by Mamidipudi Soumithri in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey)