British Telecommunications Plc and the Birmingham stockbroker Albert E Sharp have decided to cash in their chips on the Sharelink no frills telephone share dealing service and are letting the business go in a buyout led by management with institutional support led by Foreign & Colonial and the CIN Management arm of the Coal Board Pension Fund. British Telecom currently holds 64% of the business, Sharp holds 32%, and chief executive David Jones, who helped set the business up in 1987 and was rewarded with 4%, takes his stake up to 20% while 120 other managers and staff will share another 10%, leaving 70% with the institutions. In the year to March 1991, the business made pre-tax profits of UKP2.6m, but is not thought to have done so well last fiscal, when turnover was UKP14.7m and volume of trades was put at UKP14.7m. Sharelink is now thought to handle about 10% of all transactions in London. Albert Sharp said it wanted to cash in on its investment and bolster its core private client business and British Telecom is still retrenching.
