Anthony Nutt sells £13 million Jupiter stake

Jupiter's Anthony Nutt has sold around £13 million worth of shares in the fund management group.

The manager of the Jupiter Income and High Income funds used the annual vesting date for the shares – 21 June – to sell 6.5 million Jupiter Fund Management shares priced at 202p, representing exactly 50% of his interest in the firm and worth £13.1 million.

Nutt (pictured) was among a number of senior figures at Jupiter who were locked into the business when it floated on the stock market in June 2010 at 165p per share. The shares are trading nearly 2p lower at 211p today.

A spokesperson for Jupiter said: 'Employees invested significant sums of their own money in the company during our MBO [management buyout] in 2007, some of which represented previous investments in the company. It is only reasonable to expect that they will seek to realise their investments over time and diversify what remains a significant concentration of their net worth in Jupiter’s shares.

The spokesperson added: 'Anthony remains committed to the business. He, and other senior executives, still have substantial shareholdings in Jupiter – Anthony, for example, remains a top-15 shareholder.

'But over time, as their remaining shares vest, other incentives, such as our bonus scheme, which includes an element of deferral, and the long term incentive plan introduced at the time of listing, will become a more important part of their overall remuneration packages.'

Jupiter Income has lost 13.5% over the past five years, compared with the FTSE 350 Higher Yield TR benchmark's loss of 9.2%.