Drury family trims stake in Xero to below $1b

Tuesday, 21 May 2019

Rod Drury remains a major shareholder in Xero despite sell-down.

The Drury family is cashing up about $122 million of its stake in Xero, company spokesman Kristen Barrett has confirmed.

The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday that the Drury family was selling 2 million shares at a minimum price of A$59.40 a share, which would reduce its stake in Xero from 12.58 per cent to about 11.2 per cent.

The Drury family will hold just over 15.7 million shares in Xero after the sell-down, worth A$932m (NZ$986m) based on Monday's closing price.

* Xero boss Rod Drury won't give up his day job, despite $95m windfall**

Xero founder Rod Drury did not disclose the reason for the sale in a statement released by Barrett, but said he was 'really proud of the continued progress of the company'.

He was enjoying working with Xero chief executive Steve Vamos and Xero's senior leadership team in his role as a non executive director, he said.

'I'm excited about Xero's future and I'm committed to my role on the board.'

Drury previously sold a tranche of 3 million shares in Xero for $95m in 2017, saying in a statement to the NZX that would provide an important foundation for his future plans to pursue a range of philanthropic and social endeavours.

That was before he stepped down as chief executive of Xero and handed the reigns to Vamos, who relocated to Wellington earlier this year.

Xero shares jumped last week to a record high of A$62.11 after the company reported its first half-yearly net profit of A$1.4 million (NZ$1.5m) and on the back of strong subscription growth in the UK.

The AFR reported Credit Suisse had been hired to oversee the block trade for the selldown of the Drury family shares.

Vamos said last week that Xero's latest annual result was a strong one.

Adding more than 100,000 subscribers in the UK over six months was an important milestone, he said, as was the second-half profit.

Vamos said Xero had benefited from an initiative by Britain's Revenue and Customs department to encourage businesses on to digital channels.

'All accounting software providers get benefit from that and we get benefit too.'

Xero was making great progress towards its goal of driving cloud accounting adoption globally, he said.