November 27, 2007

Party boss cancels planned share sale

Mitch Garber, chief executive at PartyGaming, has cancelled a planned sale of shares and said he will not be off-loading any more shares in the company this year.

Back in March, Party announced that Garber had agreed to a programme of share sales at the end of each calendar quarter. The company gave no further reasons for the decision. However, the news could spark speculation that Party is close to signing off a deal with the US Department of Justice regarding its previous activities in the US.

According to the March plan, in June Garber sold over 4.3 million shares at a price of just over 39p, netting approximately £1.7m US$3.4m), while in September he netted approximately £1.2m from the sale of 5 million shares at 24p.

Under the agreement with the board reached in March, Garber must retain a holding of at least 3.5 million shares. After the announcement yesterday, Garber has a holding in the firm of 8.75 million shares.