Shares in Savills went down sharply yesterday.
The fall of about 7% took the price down to about 535p, below its 52-week high of 608p. This was set only two weeks ago on March 14 after the firm issued strong results showing a 22% rise in profits for last year.
Yesterday’s fall was triggered by an investor selling 7.8 million shares – almost 6% of the business, with an indicative price of between 535p and 545p.
The investor was named as Oaktree Capital Group, the US venture capital company that floated Countrywide on the stock market this month. Also this month, Oaktree bought the similarly-named Countryside property development firm from Lloyds Bank.
It is not clear why Oaktree decided to dispose of such a large tranche of Savills shares. The sale was being handled by Credit Suisse bank.
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