The company will offer 7.8m shares at $32-$35 each - the top of its previously expected price range.

LinkedIn will offer a further 4.8m shares.

Three other bankers had awards of about 1.8m shares each, worth about £750,000 at current share prices.

This would net Lewis £35m cash upfront as well as 22.1m shares in Moneysupermarket.com.

In 1999, Bank of Hawaii bought 5.8 m shares (approx.

Costain, up 3p at 31p, has sold its 7.5m shares in Great Portland.

Previous awards of shares mean a total of 1.376m shares are now owned by Cook or held in his name.

The eight will share only 1.5m shares between them, representing just 2.4% of the shares the company will have outstanding after the 5.1m share issue.

Uralmash was converted into a joint-stock company at the end of 1992 with 1.8m shares.

Some 6.5m shares are said to have changed hands in two hours.