JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin has sold £5 million worth of shares in his pub chain just days after warning new coronavirus restrictions will keep almost half of his sites shut.
Mr Martin offloaded 431,500 of the company’s shares at a price of £11.66 each on Tuesday, leaving the firm’s founder and chairman with a 27 per cent stake.
He also sold £5 million worth of shares in the summer.
A spokesman for Wetherspoon declined to comment on the latest sale.
The move was announced on the day pubs are allowed to reopen across England under Tiers 1 and 2 after the one-month lockdown.
But they must only serve alcohol with a substantial meal, while pubs under Tier 3 must remain closed except for takeaway, drive-through and delivery only.
Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin sold £5million of his shares after he branded the contentious tier system ‘lockdown by stealth’ and revealed that 366 of his own pubs will remain closed
Mr Martin last Friday accused the Government of extending ‘a form of lockdown by stealth’ as he said 366 of its pubs will still remain closed in light of new tiered measures.
He said Boris Johnson is ’embarking on economically ruinous policies, with no health benefits’ by imposing the contentious new tier system.
Prior to the tier system Commons vote on Tuesday, which passed by a margin of 291 to 78, Mr Martin wrote a letter to all MPs claiming there was a lack of transparency from the Government.
He said: ‘A pub licence, unlike a restaurant licence, allows you to sell beer, wine and spirits “for consumption on the premises”, without a table meal – and this is now prohibited.
‘The reality is that pubs in Tier 3 will be physically shut from December 2 and pubs in Tier 2, if they open at all, will be trading as restaurants, not pubs.
‘There are only a tiny number of pubs in Tier 1 – and in those you can’t even order at the bar.’
He said the Government was making ‘reckless decisions’, with MPs only having an occasional opportunity to intervene.
‘There is overwhelming scientific evidence that lockdowns and quasi-lockdowns can be counterproductive, as the World Health Organisation has recently emphasised.
Mr Martin, founder and chairman, said it was a ‘fallacy’ that pubs would be allowed to reopen today when England’s current lockdown ends as he accused the Government of embarking on ‘economically ruinous policies’. Pictured: A staff member in a Wetherspoons pub in London
‘The Government has spent around £350 billion on lockdowns so far – around three times what is spent annually on the health service.
‘That expenditure will continue at about £6 billion a week for the indefinite future.
‘I am hopeful that MPs will see that the Government is embarking on economically ruinous policies, with no health benefits.
‘Pubs have invested tens of millions of pound to make them safe, in accordance with regulations devised by the Government, local authorities and health officials.’
Mr Martin last week revealed that 366 of its pubs will remain closed in light of new tiered measures – sending its shares diving.
Since then, he has said all his 51 pubs in Wales will also close as the country tightens restrictions again to deal with a resurgence of cases after its firebreak ended.
Mr Martin announced pubs across Wales will shut at 6pm on Friday after the First Minister Mark Drakeford banned the sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants following a sharp uptick in infections, especially among the under-25s.
Mr Martin said: ‘I don’t want to wind the Welsh up by criticising their First Minister, but he is talking cobblers.
‘There is very good evidence that lockdowns, and this is a type of lockdown, simply don’t work. There is lots of examples of that throughout the world. This scare tactic that so many people are going to die are nonsense in my opinion.’
Mr Martin went on to say it would not be viable for his business to remain open amid the restrictions.
He continued: ‘We are closing. It will not be viable to open. We tried it in Scotland when they brought in similar rules to Wales for a few weeks, but it was ruinously expensive.
‘You can open for food, which is quite a big percentage of our trade, but what happens is a lot of people go out for a glass of wine, or a pint with a meal, so you lose a lot of your food sales as well. Overall, it is not viable.’
Share sales by management are often seen as a bad sign by investors.
Wetherspoon shares have plummeted from more than £16 before the pandemic struck to a low of £5.59 in March as pubs were ordered to shut ahead of the spring lockdown.
The stock has recently rallied a little, hitting £12.46 at one stage on Wednesday – its highest since early March.