The Quarto Group announced this morning that Harwood Capital and Wellcome Trust have sold their shares in the company. A number of institutional investors acquired the shares.
As a result of the sale Christopher Mills, Harwood Capital’s managing partner, will step down as a non-executive director of Quarto when a new non-executive director has been appointed. That appointment is expected to take place before Quarto’s annual meeting next May. Mills will retain his personal holding of 100,000 shares in the publisher.
It was Harwood and Wellcome that forced Quarto co-founder Laurence Orbach to give up his role in the publisher in 2012, saying they were unhappy with his leadership.
In a prepared statement on the sale of the Quarto stake, Mills said: "In the three years since Harwood took a hands-on approach to our investment in Quarto with the support of Wellcome and others, the share price has improved by close to 50%. The corporate governance of the company is now in accordance with best practice, the management team of Tim Chadwick, chairman, and Marcus Leaver, CEO, has set a clear strategy and the company is beginning to fulfill the potential I have always believed it had.”
Over the last three years, Quarto has improved earnings and cut debt. It expects to post higher earnings and lower debt for 2015.
