Former chairman and chief executive Gary Hoffman is also set to pocket £15m from the deal
Former Hastings chairman Neil Utley is set to make more than £70m after Finnish insurer Sampo and existing investor Rand Merchant Investment Holdings Limited (RMI) announced they were launching a £1.7bn bid to buy the business for 250p per share.
This means that Utley’s 29.3 million shares in Hastings would be worth a cool £73.3m if he were to sell, This Is Money reports, with his wealth already estimated at £194m according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
Utley first made a name for himself as part of a 2009 management buyout that saw him installed as chairman to lead Hastings’ revival, and he later made £135m when 50% of the business was sold to Goldman Sachs in 2013.
And the 58-year-old made headlines in 2014 after snapping up David and Victoria Beckham’s ‘Beckingham Palace’ country mansion for £11.5 million.
He pocketed a further £2.8m in 2015 when Hastings listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The sale to Sampoand RMI will come as good news for Hastings’ other shareholders too, with the business facing some troubled times of late, particularly with the high levels of claims inflation that have become a mainstay of the UK motor market.
Shares in Hastings were priced at around 171p per share before the deal was announced, a little ahead of the 168p the business floated for in 2015, and well below the 250p per share Sampo and RMI intend to pay for the business.
Meanwhile, former chairman and chief executive Gary Hoffman will earn around £15m from Hastings’ sale.
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