Ex-Apple exec on track for second Thetrainline payout
A FORMER Apple engineer who made a fortune selling his business to Thetrainline is on track for a further windfall when the online ticket seller goes public.
Barry Hochfield, who together with business partner David Braddock made almost £2million selling their IT business in 2007, took part of their consideration for Advanced Smartcard Technologies in Thetrainline shares. They and other former managers of AST hold around one million of the company’s subordinated preference shares.
Those shares, together with rolled-up dividends payable since their issue, are likely to be worth about £1.5million when the company is listed on the stock exchange.
Thetrainline sells tickets on behalf of UK train operators, and is set to be valued on listing at up to £500million.
Exponent, the private equity firm, bought the business in 2006 for £163million. The company hopes to raise £75million from the listing, it said.
Thetrainline made £34million in profits in the year to the start of March 2014, slightly down on the previous year.
The company says it is planning to pay out a quarter of its profits after tax as a dividend every year when it becomes a listed entity.
Hochfield now provides leadership advice for start-ups, while many of his former colleagues work for Ecebs, which was a subsidiary of AST.
Thetrainline hired financial advisers in 2012 to try to sell the business, but were unable to do so. Started by Virgin in 1999, it is now run by ex-eBay executive Clare Gilmartin.
The current management have stakes in the business, but the size of their holdings is unclear.
A total of £9billion of train tickets were sold in 2014. Thetrainline website sold almost £1billion of tickets in its most recent financial year, which ended last March.