08/12/2008

Carphone Warehouse Co-Founder Quits Over Share Scandal

David Ross, the co-founder of British mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse has resigned as deputy chairman after failing to declare he pledged shares he owned in the company to secure personal loans.

Mr Ross, 42, who owns almost a fifth of the company, used 136 million of his 177 million as security against personal loans, without informing anyone in the company.

Under Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulations, he was obliged to have made public that he had used his shares in this way.

Shares in Carphone Warehouse fell 5.4% to 88p this morning, in a five-year low, over fears Mr Ross would sell his shares.

However, the company declared he had no plans to sell his stock.

Carphone also said he had notified the company that none of the loans were in default.

The group posted interim profits of £39 million for the 26 weeks to September 27, compared with £44 million in the same period last year.

Chief executive Charles Dunstone, who went to school with Mr Ross said his resignation was a "great personal sadness".

He added the incident was "probably an oversight or a misunderstanding of what needed to be done".

The 42-year-old, who is also on the board of the organising committee for London 2012, is Carphone's second-largest shareholder with 19.4% of its shares. He was ranked the 87th richest man in the UK, in this year's Sunday Times Rich List. He has a worth of £873 million.

He is also a non-executive director at Big yellow, the self-storage group.

(JM)

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