Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon has offloaded a mountain of shares within the streaming big.
Yesterday (Wednesday, Could 21), Lorentzon offered 1 million shares at Tuesday’s closing worth of $658.60 per share, elevating a complete of $658.6 million.
That’s proper: practically $659 million in ONE GO.
The sale was executed by his holding firm Rosello Co. Ltd, in line with a submitting with the US Securities and Alternate Fee, noticed by MBW.
The divestment got here simply 5 days after Lorentzon unloaded one other 11,275 shares for $7.3 million on Friday (Could 16), which was filed with the SEC below his full identify, Sven Hans Martin Lorentzon, as a substitute of his holding firm Rosello.
The full quantity cashed out throughout the 2 transactions over the previous week from Lorentzon and his holding firm, Rosello Co. Ltd, is a whopping $665.9 million.
Rosello is a Cyprus-registered holding firm owned by Almatea, a Luxembourg-based agency whose sole shareholder is Spotify co-founder (and the agency’s former Chairman), Martin Lorentzon.
As beforehand reported by MBW, Rosello Firm Ltd offered 959,762 shares on November 13, producing USD $383.75 million in proceeds for Rosello.
Lorentzon/Rosello additionally beforehand cashed out $81 million in Spotify inventory on June 7 final 12 months, plus an extra $5.7 million on June 10, and an extra $85.8 million on July 25.
As such, Lorentzon/Rosello cashed out over $556 million in 2024, and accounted for roughly half the worth of the $1.1 billion price of shares offered by Spotify’s executives and board administrators final 12 months.
Lorentzon/Rosello’s personal Spotify inventory money outs in 2024 and 2025 (to date), mixed, complete over $1.2 billion.
He nonetheless maintains vital management over Spotify, with a 9.8% stake within the firm as of mid-February and 41.6% voting energy as of the top of 2024. That compares to co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek‘s 14.3% possession stake that carries 29.1% voting energy, in line with SPOT’s most up-to-date 20-F submitting in February.
The timing of the newest money outs follows Spotify’s first-quarter earnings report, which confirmed the streaming service’s Premium Subscriber base rising 12% YoY to 268 million, income rising 15% YoY to €4.190 billion ($4.4 billion) and quarterly working earnings reached a report excessive of €509 million ($535.6 million).
Ek has additionally been divesting a few of his Spotify holdings, promoting one other $28.8 million price of firm shares on April 30, the newest in a promoting sample that has now generated round $807.9 million in proceeds since mid-2023.
The newest transaction marked Ek’s ninth inventory sale this 12 months and his nineteenth since initiating the promoting streak in July 2023.
Ek has established a biweekly promoting sample in 2025, cashing out about $267.8 million in Spotify inventory since January.
Along with proudly owning a big stake in Spotify, Lorentzon mentioned in 2021 that he owns a 90% stake in Cervantes Capital AB, a personal funding agency that he based.
Again in March, Bloomberg reported that Cervantes Capital, which has obtained about $120 million of Lorentzon’s estimated $12.6 billion fortune, plans to greater than double its belongings below administration by investing in shares missed by main banks’ fairness analysis groups.
“The funding group has been capable of create proof-of-concept as an energetic, long-term proprietor within the Nordic public market,” Lorentzon mentioned in emailed feedback to Bloomberg. “They’re now able to scale up their enterprise.”
Stockholm-based Cervantes maintain stakes in 14 Nordic firms price a mixed 2 billion kronor ($197 million), in line with Bloomberg. Cervantes co-founder David Zaudy mentioned the plan is to develop the agency’s belongings to 5 billion kronor ($492m) within the coming years, the information outlet mentioned in March.
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