Dixons Carphone chair doubles holding
The chairman of Dixons Carphone has more than doubled his stake in the Currys and PC World owner after snapping up nearly £100,000 worth of shares, it emerged yesterday.
Lord Livingston, a former BT chief executive and UK trade minister who joined the Dixons board in 2015, bought 54,655 shares worth £1.82 each, amounting to £99,472, in the wake of the company’s stock market slide on Thursday.
Shares shed more than a fifth of their value as the group warned that soaring costs for new mobile phones meant consumers were holding on to older models for longer. Livingston previously held 31,889 shares on 29 April this year.
In an unscheduled trading update on Thursday, Dixons Carphone chief executive Seb James warned: “Currency fluctuations have meant that handsets have become more expensive while technical innovation has been more incremental.
“As a consequence, we have seen an increased number of people hold on to their phones for longer.” The group now expects headline pre-tax profit for the full year to be in the range of £360 million to £440m.
This is down from City forecasts of between £460m and £485m and shy of the £501m posted last year. The firm is also taking a hit of between £10m and £40m from changes to EU roaming legislation.
The warning came despite news that UK like-for-like sales had risen by 4 per cent in the 13 weeks to 29 July, while total sales nudged up 1 per cent. The firm also operates in Scandinavia and Greece.