bonanza for pets at home staff

PETS at Home staff are sitting on a paper profit of £11.7m as shares soared.

More than 500 staff took part in a savings scheme in 2018, buying up to £500 of shares at 94p each every month. The scheme shut yesterday – allowing workers to sell their stakes – with the average worker set for more than £21,000.

Their investments more than quadrupled in value on the back of the pandemic pet boom as people stuck at home had more time to care for pets and look for companionship, driving up sales of cats and dogs.

Shares closed yesterday at 469.4p. If a worker saved £5,345 under the scheme, theirs were worth £26,400.

Some, who invested the full amount of £18,000, ended up with more than £89,000, a £71,000 profit. One worker at the shop in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, who saved the maximum said they would buy a car and put a deposit on a house.