Sainsbury's boss gives half his £4m stake in supermarket group to his wife

Sainsbury's boss Justin King has handed half of his £4m stake in the supermarket group to his wife for "financial planning purposes". The move was announced to the stock exchange in a statement that revealed King had gifted 700,000 of his 1.32m shares to his wife, Claire.

The company said: "It is quite common for company directors to transfer shares to their spouses for financial planning purposes."

Tax experts suggested there would be an income tax benefit for wealthy executives gifting shares to spouses. They said that on dividends worth around £100,000, a non-working spouse would save around £20,000 in taxes when compared to the higher rate tax paying executive. A holding of around 700,000 shares in J Sainsbury would have yielded dividends of almost £100,000 last year.

King was paid £2.4m in cash and benefits last year, so any dividends he receives on his investments would probably attract the 50% top rate of tax. He has also been busy trading his Sainsbury's shares of late and last month King sold 80,723 Sainsbury's shares "to fund the income tax and national insurance payable on [a share] award", while retaining the remaining 77,319 shares in the award. In February, King sold a further 50,000 shares.

Shares in J Sainsbury lost 2.8p to close at 331.6p on Monday.