(Bloomberg) — J Sainsbury Plc shares fell after its biggest stockholder, the Qatar Investment Authority, sold a £268.8 million ($351.4 million) stake in Britain’s second-largest grocer overnight.

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The gas-rich country’s sovereign wealth fund sold 96 million shares at 280 pence each, 2.8% below the closing price Thursday, according to terms seen by Bloomberg News. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which arranged the trade, sold another 13.4 million shares to hedge a derivatives transaction, bringing the offering to £306.3 million.

Qatar backed Sainsbury’s in 2007 in one of its first UK investments and attempted unsuccessfully to take the company private. The fund owned 14.2% of Britain’s second-largest grocer before the sale of the 4.1% stake, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Sainsbury’s shares dropped 5.6% to 271.80 pence at 12:38 p.m. in London. The stock has declined 49% since Qatar first disclosed a stake in the company in April 2007, compared with a 28% gain for the FTSE 100 Index. Including reinvested dividends, the stock has returned 0.7% annually since then versus 5.3% for the index.

Qatar has other high-profile UK investments, including a stake in British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines Group SA and ownership of luxury London department store Harrods. The QIA also has shares in Barclays Plc but sold almost half its stake in December for £510 million.

Qatar’s latest share sale comes amid a flurry of block trade activity in Europe, as investors look to take advantage of higher stock prices ahead of the upcoming US presidential election and earnings season.

Bankers have sold some $10.3 billion of existing shares on European exchanges since the start of September, with the UK accounting for about a third of volumes, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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These include a deal this month by Pfizer Inc. to offload £2.4 billion of shares in Sensodyne toothpaste maker Haleon Plc.

(Updates to add chart, shares context. An earlier version corrected the size of stake in headline and first paragraphs.)

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