MORE small shareholders are to get the chance to trade their shares in Royal Mail after another day of strong gains for the newly-privatised company.
While shares in the letter and parcel delivery firm have been traded conditionally since Friday, Royal Mail will make its full stock market debut today in a landmark day for the 500-year-old institution.
All 690,000 small investors who bought stakes for £750 will be able to cash in paper profits of about £329 each, based on Monday's closing price of 475p, when shares go unconditional. Shares in the company closed up another 4%, a gain of 44% on their initial valuation.
That values the company at £1.4 billion over the price tag applied by the Government on Thursday, which valued it at £3.3bn. Around 68 million shares in the company changed hands yesterday, as demand for the newly-privatised company shows no sign of easing. More than 100 million shares were traded in the first hour of Friday. Wednesday will see the result of a strike ballot by postal workers in the CWU over issues linked to privatisation.
Conditional dealing started on Friday for investors who applied for shares through brokers or big institutions.
But unconditional dealing in the company's shares begins today, meaning investors who bought direct from the government website can sell shares in Royal Mail.
And around 150,000 postal workers are sitting on stakes worth more than £3000 after staff were given 10% of the company - although they cannot sell them for three years. The steep rise in shares above the 330p price at which the Government valued them has stoked claims that the company was sold too cheaply.
The Royal Mail share sell-off was about seven times oversubscribed among small investors, while among big institutions such as pension and hedge funds, demand exceeded supply by 20 times. About a third of the shares went to retail investors, while institutions got 67%.
Stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown said it has been "very busy" again on Monday, after demand on Friday crashed its website and left phone lines jammed.
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