JOC Staff | Jul 13, 2012 2:07PM EDT
The fund of the family that controls A.P. Moller-Maersk sold series B shares in the Danish shipping and oil group for about $55.5 million to cover tax and other costs, the company said on Friday.
The A.P. Moller and Chastine Mc-Kinney Moller Family Fund sold 8,638 shares in A.P. Moller-Maersk, the company said in a statement to the Copenhagen stock exchange that was reported by Reuters.
The fund’s sale was related to the costs associated with the estate of a grandchild of founder A.P. Moller, and not to the April death of Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller, who built the family business into a global conglomerate that owns Maersk Line, Maersk Oil, APL Terminals and Damco.
The fund, the second-biggest shareholder in A.P. Moller-Maersk after another Moller family fund, held 9.85 percent of the shares and 13.53 percent of the votes in the company before the sale, according to information on the company's Web site.
The sold shares correspond roughly to a 0.2 percent stake.
The fund sold the shares to cover the costs of a distribution to heirs after the grandchild's death last year, a spokesman for the family fund told Reuters.
The spokesman said the share sale was not related to the death of Mc-Kinney Moller.