£254m for founders as firm floats for £1billion

THE bosses of a financial software firm have made millions after it launched onto the London stock market in the biggest flotation this year.

Alfa Financial Software joined the market yesterday, in a move that valued the company at £975m.

It handed the co-founder and chief executive a £254m payday, after they sold 26pc of the business. As a majority shareholder, Andrew Page, who launched the business more than 25 years ago, took home most of the money. Alfa sold shares at 325p each in the IPO, but the stock soared by more than 30pc after trading opened – valuing the company at closer to £1.2bn.

Page, 54, had wanted to create a company that made software for the £4.2trillion finance industry. Today it provides software to handle everything from cars and mobile phones bought on finance to oil tankers and cranes.

Alfa holds a small part of the market – sales last year reached £73.3m – and hopes the IPO will boost its profile to help it win customers.

It marked the largest technology flotation since cyber security firm Sophos launched onto the market in a £1bn listing two years ago.

The shares were ten times over-subscribed, and a third of investors who wanted to buy shares were unable to.

Page and chief executive Andrew Denton will not be able to sell any more shares for the next 12 months. The shares closed at 429.8p.