Tristel CEO sells £1mn shares to buy property

While sales of surface disinfectants went up, sales of medical device decontamination solutions dropped. Tristel’s fortunes started picking up this year, though, and it announced earlier this month that it expects its annual profit and revenue figures to meet expectations. It plans to offer shareholders a special dividend of 3p per share. It also expects to declare a final dividend of 3.93p – in line with last year’s payout – when it announces full-year results in October.

Tristel’s business has gained from the well-documented backlog of medical procedures that clinicians around the world are working to address.

“Hospitals worldwide are gradually returning to normal levels of service, which for Tristel means an increasing number of diagnostic procedures, each requiring a disinfection event,” the company’s chief executive, Paul Swinney, said. “During the year 15.7mn disinfection events took place with a Tristel medical device disinfectant, which is 31 per cent higher than in the year ended 30 June 2019.”

It was also revealed last week that Swinney sold almost £1mn worth of shares to fund a property purchase. He sold 300,000 shares at 333p, leaving him with 412,350 shares, or a stake of about 0.9 per cent. Swinney is the co-founder and an original shareholder of Tristel and has been its chief executive since its flotation on the Alternative Investment Market (Aim) in 2005.

The shares closed around 5 per cent lower on the day of the announcement,at 338p.

When contacted by the IC, a spokesperson confirmed the share sale was to fund a property purchase and was “in no way a reflection of the expected future performance of the business”.