Paul Hampden Smith, who has been the Finance Director at Travis Perkins since 1996, has reduced his stake in the building materials supplier following the announcement of his retirement plans last Friday.

The sales, which were announced after the close on Friday, were made between October 16th and 17th over eight separate transactions, of which six related directly to shares belonging to his wife, Sarah Hampden Smith.

Altogether 68,800 shares were sold for an average price of 1,109.09p for a total of £763,054.

Last week the director announced his intention to retire from the board early next year. He has been with the company for over 20 years and now intends to pursue a portfolio career. He will stay with the group until September 2013 to ensure a proper handover.

The announcement of his retirement plans coincided with company's most recent interim management statement, in which it admitted that total sales in the third quarter were down 2.4% year-on-year, as the group struggled with the poor weather and the competing attraction of the Olympics. Like-for-like sales per trading day were down 3.5% on the corresponding period of last year.

Despite this, shares in the company are still up 32% over the past 12 months, equal to 267p.

Following the transaction, Paul Hampden Smith has a beneficial interest in 164,922 shares, equal to less than 0.1% of the issued share capital.


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