Caledonia Mining boss sells shares - without knowing

The board of AIM-listed Caledonia Mining were left red-faced today after it emerged its chairman had sold all his shares in the company, but knew nothing about it.

The Zimbabwe gold miner said “a third-party manager of discretionary funds” controlled by Leigh Wilson dumped his 75,200 shares between February 26 and March 2 at 63 cents each for £33,000.

Caledonia said Wilson had “no knowledge of the share sale until 13 May”.

Worse still for Wilson, since unwittingly offloading his stake, the share price has rallied 44%, meaning he missed out on a potential £17,000 profit.

The company, which made an $8 million (£5.6 million) pre-tax profit last year, confirmed that Wilson plans to buy back the shares.

In 2006, Wilson, a former banker who was the chief executive of Paribas in the US in the eighties, was awarded the Mutual Fund Trustee of the Year prize by Institutional Investor magazine.

The shares fell 1p today to 67.5p.