Tesco Bank chairman makes £1.4m on shares sale

The chairman of Tesco Bank, Andrew Higginson, has sold more than £1.4 million worth of shares as he prepares to leave the firm next year.

Higginson sold 350,000 shares at 403.43p each in the retailer earlier this week. Although yesterday’s stock exchange announcement from Tesco did not disclose what his reduced stake in the company now stands at, the latest annual report shows he had a holding of 1.34 million shares at 26 February along with options over a further 3.49 million shares.

Higginson was Tesco’s finance and strategy director from 1997 to 2008, helping to spearhead the group’s moves overseas and online. He also led the retailer’s purchase of Royal Bank of Scotland’s 50 per cent stake in Tesco Personal Finance for £950m in 2008.

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In August, he announced he was planning to retire from the group next September when he will have completed 15 years on the board.

Higginson said then that with the completion of the bank as a standalone entity it seemed “an appropriate moment to hand over and move on to the next phase of my career”.

In September, it was revealed that Tesco’s long-awaited move into the mortgage market faced further delays. Tesco Bank was due to offer its first mortgages this autumn, but its entry is not now expected until early 2012 as it ensures its systems work properly and it completes regulatory hurdles that have taken longer than initially expected.

At the time the bank said it was still awaiting clearance from the Financial Services Authority to sell mortgages.

Shares in Tesco closed down 1.6p at 400.15p.

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