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* Peter Hargreaves owns 31.59% stake in company
* Says sale to diversify assets
* To continue to be substantial shareholder in company
(Adds Hargreaves Lansdown declined to comment, stake details)
By Noor Zainab Hussain
Feb 6 (Reuters) - Hargreaves Lansdown's largest
investor Peter Hargreaves will sell shares worth about 500
million pounds ($647 million) in the British investment platform
via a sale to institutional investors, a bookrunner on the deal
said.
"This is part of a process of long-term financial planning
to diversify my assets. I remain, and will continue to be, a
substantial shareholder in Hargreaves Lansdown," Hargreaves, who
co-founded the firm with Stephen Lansdown in 1981, said.
The sale will come just days after a slowdown in net new
business growth overshadowed an increase in half-year profit for
Hargreaves.
The company declined to comment.
Hargreaves Lansdown has faced a tough year after funds it
backed, run by independent investment manager Neil Woodford,
were suspended after a liquidity squeeze.
Hargreaves Lansdown executives waived their full-year
bonuses and also management fees charged to clients which were
trapped in the fund.
Barclays Bank, acting through its investment bank,
is bookrunner and Numis Securities is acting as co-bookrunner on
the sale.
Peter Hargreaves owned 31.59% of the FTSE 100
company as of Jan. 29, according to Refinitiv data.
His shareholding of 149.86 million shares is worth about
2.56 billion pounds, according to Reuters calculation, based on
the Bristol, southwest England-based company's closing share
price of 1,708.5 pence on Thursday.
Hargreaves and his family set up a charitable foundation https://www.thehargreavesfoundation.org
earlier this year, to be funded through a transfer of shares
held by him in the company to the foundation.
The value of the transfers in the first year was pegged at
about 100 million pounds, with the intention of further
meaningful grants over time.
The sale price of the shares and the final size of the sale
will be decided after the books have closed, the bookrunner
said.
($1 = 0.7733 pounds)
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; editing by Jane
Merriman and Mark Potter)
