THE FORMER finance director of collapsed outsourcing giant Carillion has been blasted for “dumping” the last of his shares in the failing company as soon as possible.

Richard Adam flogged off £534,000 in shares – his entire shareholding – on March 1 last year after retiring in December 2016, according to new information published today by the work and pensions and business select committees.

He then sold his long-term incentive plan awards from 2014 for £242,000 on May 8 2017.

In three months, Mr Adam sold shares worth a total of £776,000 as the company floundered, the committees revealed.

More than 1,000 Carillion workers have lost their jobs since the company went into liquidation last month.

A spokesman for Unite the union called Mr Adam’s actions “gobsmacking” and accused the company’s directors of enriching themselves while Carillion’s workforce was “thrown to the wolves.”

The revelations were published following new letters to the two parliamentary committees, which are conducting a joint inquiry into Carillion’s collapse.

Previous evidence published by the committees said Mr Adam regarded funding Carillion’s pension scheme as a “waste of money.”

Work and pensions committee chair Frank Field said: “Mr Adam presided over Carillion’s finances for a decade.

“He, more than anyone else, ought to know the merits of Carillion shares as a long-term investment in the light of his lengthy and lucrative tenure.

“His assessment? Dumping the last of his shares at the first possible moment because he is – with his own money at least – ‘risk averse’. What conclusions are we to draw from that?”

A Unite spokesman said: “For any other organisation this kind of activity would be gobsmacking. For Carillion’s directors, this was business as normal.

“We now know that Carillion insiders already knew they were in deep trouble in 2016, but we have seen again and again that the directors’ main priority was to enrich themselves and feather their own nests rather than protect the interests of the company.

“While Carillion’s directors enriched themselves they allowed their workforce and their supply chain to be thrown to the wolves.

“Richard Adam sold his shares shortly before Carillion issued its first profits warning and its share price collapsed. It is almost certain he knew what was around the corner for the company.”