On the Beach founder and CEO Simon Cooper has bought over 1.5m more shares in the business to increase his stake to 5.64%.

The additional purchase leaves Simon with 9.4m shares in the business.

In an announcement to the London Stock Exchange, the online travel agent said it had been notified that Simon Cooper had bought 1,530,142 ordinary shares of 1p each at a price of 129.54p per share at an aggregate price of £1.98m on 19 August.

The share price dipped following the purchase to 114p, but this morning it had recovered to 122p.

In the first half of this financial year, to the end of March, OTB made a pre-tax loss of £7m.