Royal Mail (LON: RMG) employees have lost about £850 each following a sharp fall in share price two weeks ago.
Staff were waiting for Monday to sell the free shares they received five years ago when the group was privatised.
On October 1, the company issued a profit warning, sending shares down almost 30% to 338p. Before the profit warning, shares were trading at 477p and previously peaked at 631p in May.
Following the profit warning, analysts at The Share Centre said the company faced the risk of falling out of the blue-chip FTSE 100 index at the next quarterly reshuffle.
Helal Miah, an investment research analyst at The Share Centre, said: “After only a few months in charge the new chief executive of Royal Mail has issued a shocking trading update to the market, which was certainly unexpected.”
“Having been hovering around the FTSE 100 relegation lists in the last few quarterly reviews, the shares are now more than ever at risk of dropping out of the prestigious top 100 in the next reshuffle.”
Employees have expressed frustration and some have accused the company of deliberately issuing a profit warning just two weeks before many were planning to sell shares.
Des Arthur, a postman from Coventry, told the BBC: “The timing of it could be viewed as extremely cynical. It’s going to look like it’s not right.”
Terry Pullinger, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), said: “Our members certainly believe it’s just been done to deflate what they would get if they sold their shares.”
“You know what people are like; people in some ways have already spent that money in anticipation,” he added.
The fall in share price has led to some Royal Mail employees to cancel holidays as well as delay payments such as debt repayments.
The group’s spokesperson said: “We were very disappointed that we had to issue a trading update last week. We know and understand this is disappointing for those colleagues who had been planning to sell some of their free shares. But we have to comply with stock market disclosure rules, which required us to make an announcement as soon as possible.”