It looks like management and board members of FX risk management and payment solutions company Alpha FX Group plc (LON:AFX) are going to take advantage of the company’s rising share price – as well as a recent lock-up expiry – and cash out a significant portion of their holdings in the company.

Alpha FX announced that company CEO Morgan Tillbrook (pictured above), co-founder Jonathan Currie, and CFO Tim Kidd along with two non-executive directors will be selling a total of 3,846,153 shares at a price of 910 pence per share. That’s slightly below Alpha FX’s closing price Wednesday of 935p. Total expected proceeds from the share sale are £35 million.

The three-year lock-up which applied to Mr. Tillbrook and Mr. Currie actually expired back on April 7. However that coincided with a more-than-50% plunge in the company’s share price in the wake of a global equities sell-off at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis. Alpha FX shares hit an all-time high of 1370p in January, but by the time the lock-up expired in April the shares were below 700p and equity markets were in turmoil. AFX shares have since recovered to above 900p, as noted above, as Alpha FX reported strong results for the first half of 2020 despite the coronavirus crisis.

Alpha FX one year share price chart. Source: Google Finance.

Messrs. Tillbrook and Currie have again agreed to a new lock-up post sale, agreeing not to sell any of their remaining holdings for a further three years, except with the prior written consent of Liberum Capital (which acted as sole bookrunner for the secondary sale), and of the company.

The selling shareholders in the deal are as follows:

The shares being sold represent in aggregate approximately 9.6% of the company’s issued share capital. The company noted that each selling shareholder remains strongly aligned to the long-term success of Alpha FX. Assuming all the shares are sold, the selling shareholders will continue to hold, as a group, 23.8% of the issued share capital of the company (with the bulk of that being Mr. Tillbrook and Mr. Currie).

The sale of the shares will be effected by way of an accelerated bookbuild to institutional investors, which will be launched immediately. As noted above Liberum Capital Limited is acting as Sole Bookrunner in relation to the placing.

The timing for the close of the bookbuild process and the distribution of allocations will be at the absolute discretion of Liberum. The results of the placing will be announced as soon as practicable thereafter.

The company also noted that it itself is not a party to the placing, and will not receive any proceeds from the placing. All proceeds from the share sale will go to the selling shareholders, as listed above.