Ex-Hochschild Mining exec sells stock, shares fall

By Eric Onstad and Victoria Bryan

LONDON (Reuters) - A former executive of Hochschild Mining cashed in 55 million pounds worth of the company's shares on Wednesday, helping send its stock down after it posted a sharp rise in quarterly output.

Shares in the Latin American silver and gold producer, which had nearly tripled so far this year, closed down 7.1 percent at 279 pence after the share placing by former director Alberto Beeck. Hochschild declined to comment on the placing.

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan said they sold 20 million shares on behalf of Beeck at 275 pence each, up from an original plan to sell 15 million shares, and representing 6.5 percent of Hochschild's share capital.

Beeck joined Hochschild in 1998 and was an executive director at the time of the company's IPO in 2006. He stepped down from the company in September 2008 after moving to a non-executive role in May of that year.

The sale means 47 percent of Hochschild's shares are now in freefloat.

Earlier the London-listed group posted a 19 percent rise in second-quarter output but said it would record a $5.3 million (3.2 million pounds) loss on forward sales in the first half.

Hochschild said attributable production for the three months to the end of June reached 7.2 million silver equivalent ounces, up from 6.1 million a year ago, helped by expansion at its Arcata and Pallancata mines in Peru and San Jose in Argentina.

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