Matthew Lewis Has Sold 400,000 Shares Since August
CMC Markets’ Head of ANZ Matthew Lewis has sold 200,000 shares in the London-listed trading group for £1.54 million, his second sale of that size in just over two weeks as the company’s stock trades near multi-year highs.
A regulatory filing published on September 9 shows Lewis disposed of 200,000 ordinary CMC Markets shares on September 7 at 770 pence each on the London Stock Exchange. The filing identifies Lewis as a person discharging managerial responsibilities and describes the transaction simply as a “disposal of shares.”
The latest transaction follows another 200,000-share disposal disclosed on August 25.
In that earlier transaction, Lewis sold 50,000 shares on August 21 at 733 pence each and another 150,000 shares on August 24 at 738.18 pence. Those sales generated approximately £1.474 million.
Taken together, the two sets of transactions amount to 400,000 shares sold for approximately £3.014 million in less than three weeks.
The filings do not state why Lewis made either the August or September disposals, nor does the latest notification provide his resulting shareholding.
That distinction is relevant because other recent Lewis share sales had an explicitly stated purpose. In July, CMC Markets disclosed several transactions connected with the vesting of employee share awards. On July 13, Lewis acquired 30,202 shares through the vesting of conditional awards and sold 14,225 shares at 734.5 pence specifically to cover income tax and other payroll withholdings.
A similar transaction followed on July 21, when he acquired 30,575 shares at nil cost under an incentive plan and sold 14,400 at 694 pence to meet tax liabilities. Another award-related transaction on July 23 saw him acquire 41,706 shares and dispose of 19,642 at 703 pence after CMC corrected an earlier processing error affecting awards.
By contrast, the August and September notifications contain no reference to taxation, vesting or payroll obligations and record the transactions only as share disposals.
Lewis also acquired 4,759 shares at 704 pence through dividend reinvestment within a vested share trust account on August 14.
The latest sale comes after an unusually strong run in CMC Markets shares.
On September 9, the day the transaction was disclosed, the company’s stock was trading around 764 pence during the afternoon. Alliance News noted that the shares had more than tripled over the preceding 12 months from 221 pence.
Much of the recent re-rating followed a substantial improvement in CMC’s financial performance.
CMC reported net operating income of £392.6 million for the year ended March 2026, up 15% from £340.1 million a year earlier. Profit before tax increased 20% to £101.3 million, while EBITDA rose 14% to £117.8 million.
Australia was one of the standout parts of the business. CMC’s Australian stockbroking operation generated record net operating income of A$140.3 million during FY2026, up 32% from A$106.3 million, supported by increased client activity and assets under administration.
The region is also central to CMC’s next phase of expansion. The company is preparing major stockbroking partnerships with Westpac and New Zealand’s ASB Bank, with the Westpac agreement expected to bring approximately A$39 billion in assets under administration and about 500,000 share-trading accounts onto CMC’s infrastructure.
CMC then surprised the market on July 1 by lifting FY2027 net operating income guidance to at least £550 million from its previous £460 million to £480 million range. It also forecast EBITDA of £250 million, more than double the FY2026 level, citing rapid growth in its B2B platform business. The announcement sent the shares up as much as 25.3% to a then-record 574 pence.
The stock has subsequently moved substantially higher again, providing the backdrop for Lewis’s recent disposals.
The Second Sale Makes the Pattern More Relevant
One senior executive selling shares is normally weak evidence of anything.
Executives sell stock for dozens of reasons that have nothing to do with their view of the company: diversification, taxes, property purchases, family expenses or simply reducing an unusually concentrated personal holding.
There is therefore no reasonable basis from the filing alone to conclude that Lewis has become less confident about CMC Markets or its ANZ business.
But the second transaction does make the pattern more worth watching.
The September sale was not an isolated £1.54 million disposal. Lewis has now sold 400,000 shares for just over £3 million since August 21, and the filings provide no stated explanation for either set of sales.
That is different from his July transactions. CMC explicitly told the market when those shares were being sold to cover tax liabilities associated with vesting. The absence of a similar explanation in August and September does not make the newer sales negative, but it removes one straightforward explanation investors might otherwise have assumed.
Timing also matters.
CMC’s shares have risen dramatically over the past year, helped first by improving financial performance and then by a major upward revision to FY2027 expectations. Selling after a strong re-rating is entirely rational from a personal portfolio perspective. It also means Lewis has been able to monetise shares at prices significantly above where the stock traded earlier this year.
His September disposal at 770 pence came at a higher price than the 733 pence and 738.18 pence achieved in August and well above the roughly 562 pence level reached immediately after CMC’s July guidance upgrade.
The regional role adds another layer of interest.
Australia is no longer a peripheral business for CMC. Its stockbroking operation delivered A$140.3 million in FY2026 net operating income, and the Westpac and ASB partnerships could materially expand the customer base serviced through CMC’s infrastructure.
Lewis therefore sits close to a strategically important part of the group at a time when investors are assigning a much higher valuation to CMC’s growth prospects.
Still, the most important missing number is his remaining economic exposure.
The September PDMR notification reports the sale but does not state Lewis’s post-transaction holding. Without a reliable current holding figure, it is difficult to judge whether 400,000 shares represents a modest trimming of a much larger accumulated position or a substantial reduction in his personal exposure.
That makes this a story to monitor rather than evidence of a problem.
If the sales stop here, they may ultimately look like straightforward profit-taking after an exceptional rise in CMC’s shares. If further sizeable disposals follow, however, the cumulative pattern will become harder to treat as just another routine director-dealing notification.
For now, the meaningful fact is not one £1.54 million sale. It is that CMC’s senior ANZ executive has sold roughly £3 million of stock in less than three weeks while the company enters an important growth phase in the region he oversees.
Shane Neagle is a financial markets analyst and digital assets journalist specializing in cryptocurrencies, memecoins, prediction markets, and blockchain-based financial systems. His work focuses on market structure, incentive design, liquidity dynamics, and how speculative behavior emerges across decentralized platforms.
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