Rightmove chairman sells £7m of shares to buy a house

The chairman of Rightmove has sold £7m of shares in the property website group to raise funds to buy a house in London.

The group disclosed that Scott Forbes had almost halved his stake by offloading 300,000 shares at an average price of £23.51.

It is understood that Mr Forbes, who has been the company’s chairman since 2005, sold the shares to fund a house purchase in South Kensington, in an apparent signal he does not believe the property market has reached its peak.

The disposal cuts his holding in Rightmove, the owner of Britain’s biggest property website, to 319,300 shares and follows a rocky few weeks for the company’s share price.

Since the beginning of April, the group has tumbled as much as 20pc, hit by the wider sell-off in high growth stocks, particularly web-based businesses.

Although the shares have rallied in recent days and closed at £23.40 last night, up 9p, they are still well below the record high of £28.05 touched in January.

Rightmove said earlier in May that enquires for properties climbed 30pc to a record 14.8m in the first four months of the year, as it benefits from the housing boom.