On the Beach shares rally continues following founder share buyback

Shares in Manchester bargain holiday platform On The Beach continued to rally this morning following a £2.5m share buyback by founder and former CEO, Simon Cooper.

The company announced yesterday that Cooper had bought 2.8 million shares at 88.1p apiece, taking his stake in the company to 7.51% from 5.80% and sending shares soaring to just over 103p on the announcement. The uptick came following an August low last week of just under 83p. The bump continued into today with shares trading at 103.96p shortly before 11am.

The company’s shares had fallen about 42 per cent this year in the face of a prolonged cost-of-living crisis.

Cooper, 51, who founded On the Beach in 2004 and played a pivotal role in growing it into one of the UK’s leading online beach holiday retailers, stepped down as CEO at the end of June and took a non-executive role.