Top banker ‘listened for tips in City pubs and spied on colleagues to make £590,000 profit…
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:05 AM on 1st February 2011
A high-flying City banker gave his barrister wife and her friend
sensitive information on takeovers to help them make almost £600,000
from insider dealing, a court heard yesterday.
The three invested more than £2million in shares on the London Stock
Exchange between 2000 and 2008, netting a total profit of £590,000.
Christian Littlewood, 37, worked for German investment bank Dresdner
Kleinwort Wasserstein from 1998 until 2007, when he was made redundant.
Christian Littlewood (left) invested £2,150,000 and made a profit of £590,000 for himself, his wife, Angie Littlewood (right) and a friend through inside trading
He was privy to inside information on takeovers and passed it to his wife. The court heard he didn’t just use information he had been given – he also spied on colleagues’ computers and eavesdropped.
During his career he rose up the ranks, and was director of strategic banking by the time he left.
His expertise was in mergers and acquisitions and he passed on information about firms which were about to be taken over to his wife, Angela, 39, and her friend Helmy Sa’aid, 34. Mrs Littlewood and Sa’aid, owner of a juice bar, would invest in shares prior to takeovers, selling after the deals for a profit.
Southwark Crown Court heard that in March 2000 Littlewood began passing insider information to his spouse, a Singaporean national. She used her Singaporean name to trade, which was ‘convenient’, as it could not be linked easily to her husband.
Littlewood, who was earning £350,000 a year, including bonuses, in the last years of his employment, used knowledge he legitimately had, as he was ‘inside’ deals done through his bank.
Nicholas Dean, QC, prosecuting, said: ‘While Christian Littlewood was the instigator of the scheme, neither his wife nor Mr Sa’aid needed much persuasion. They became active participants.
‘Over a period of nine years they invested a total of £2,150,000, making a profit of £590,000.’
Mr Dean added that over the period Littlewood had been involved with investments in 56 stocks, 50 of them involving his co-defendants. But the three are only being sentenced in relation to the eight counts on the indictment.
Following his redundancy, Littlewood began working for another bank, Shore Capital. He fed information from the first deal he was involved in to his wife and Sa’aid. The Littlewoods, who have three children, were arrested at their London home on March 31, 2009.
Sa’aid was held on the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte in May last year.
The couple pleaded guilty to eight counts of insider trading in October. Sa’aid admitted the same charges just before trial on January 10. Lord MacDonald QC, defending Littlewood, said that, although his client ‘lit the touch paper’, he did not know the extent to which his wife and Sa’aid were investing.
The three will be sentenced later this week. Sa’aid is in custody and the Littlewoods are on conditional bail.
By on 08/02/2011