Fever-Tree founder nets £44m payout

ONE of the founders of Fever-Tree Drinks could net more than £40m by selling a large chunk of his shares in the upstart tonic maker.

Charles Rolls, who started selling Fever-Tree’s drinks with Tim Warrillow in 2005, will sell around 2.5m shares in the firm, around 2.2pc of its total shares, to institutional investors.

The sale price has not been confirmed, but if the shares sell at yesterday’s closing value, 1748p, then the sale could rake in £43.7m.

The 59-year-old, Fever-Tree’s non-executive deputy chairman, earned £12.3m last March after selling just over 1.9m shares at 635p each.

Rolls, and Warrillow founded the firm in 2003 when Warrillow, at the time a 28-year-old advertising executive, contacted Rolls, 18 years his senior, to meet for coffee.

Fever-Tree last month became the UK’s largest soft drink company, overtaking Britvic with a value of around £1.9bn. It has been a major beneficiary of the renewed popularity of gin.