Martin Lewis cashes in £25m shares

Martin Lewis, the self-proclaimed Money Saving Expert, is now £25m richer after selling a chunk of Moneysupermarket shares.

The personal finance campaigner sold his business to the comparison site for £87m in 2012 and has decided to cash in 9 million shares at 280p apiece following a rally in Moneysupermarket’s shares.

Mr Lewis’ stake in the company, which sells deals on everything from insurance to energy, is now less than 3 per cent.

The Charities Aid Foundation is also laughing all the way to the bank after selling £12m of shares donated to it by the 43-year-old.

Moneysupermarket shares fell 0.9 per cent to 293.3p on the back of the news. On Thursday, the FTSE 250 group saw its pre-tax profits rise 44 per cent to £30.2m with revenues from Money- SavingExpert.com up 30 per cent. Chief executive Peter Plum said: “We helped three million families save on their household bills in the first six months of 2015. Revenues grew 18 per cent while we put more into tech investment to make MoneySuperMarket and TravelSupermarket the easiest way for families to make their money go further.”

Mr Lewis plans to step down as editor of MoneySavingExpert.com in September and will become its part time executive chairman. The former public relations man founded the website in 2003.