Deal: Block trade in BP stock
Amount: £1.2 billion
Launched: May 14
Firm: Goldman Sachs
At 4.45pm on May 14, Gary Williams, head of equity trading at Goldman Sachs in London, was in a routine meeting at UK regulator the Securities & Investments Board. A note was passed to him from the secretary of Wiet Pot, Goldman's London head of equity sales. It was terse: "There's a big trade on, get back here." Williams sensed something out of the ordinary and immediately announced he was leaving. He grabbed a mobile phone - luckily one belonging to a Goldman colleague - and was dialling on the way out of the door.
"Big trade" was an understatement. What was beginning to unfold was the largest-ever block trade in the UK equity market, the sale by the Kuwait Investment Office (KIO) of 170 million shares in British Petroleum (BP) - 3% of the...
