Applegreen is more likely to turn to shareholders for cash to finance a deal in the UK or US in the coming years than see its two founders sell further stock in the petrol forecourt retailer, according to the company’s chief executive.
Bob Etchingham and his chief operations officer, Joe Barrett, have sold almost €49 million (£42.72 million) of stock between Applegreen’s initial public offering in June 2015 and the placement of a further stake last September. Mr Etchingham currently owns 44.9 per cent of the company, which has a €395 million (£344.41 million) market capitalisation, while Mr Barrett owns almost 15 per cent.
“We’re not going to do anything for the next two to three years,” said Mr Etchingham (63), when asked in an interview this week with The Irish Times whether the executives planned further stake sales. The September placement was carried out to increase the amount of tradable shares, as “we had a problem in that the market generally felt there wasn’t sufficient liquidity in the stock.”
