Hasgrove to de-list and buy shares back at premium
HASGROVE, the Manchester-based media group, is planning to return £10.25m to shareholders and de-list from the Alternative Investment Market blaming high costs and a lack of liquidity.
The group announced the plans as it unveiled full year figures for the year to the end of December which showed a pre-tax profit of £1.1m, up from a £3m loss last time, on turnover of £24.8m up 9%.
In March the business agreed the sale of its Manchester-based public relations firm Amaze for £15.3m to St Ives Marketing Services. It plans to use £10.25m of this income to buy up to 12.5 million shares at 82p in a tender offer.
This is a premium of 7.2% on yesterday’s closing price of 76.5p and up 31% on the closing price of 62.5p on March 8, the last business day before the Amaze deal was announced.
Following the de-listing the group will focus on Manchester and Preston-based design firm The Chase, Interact, a supplier of intranet software, and Landmarks, a Brussels-based design business.
Chief executive Paul Sanders said: “We are now providing all shareholders with a cash return option at 82p per share – a 31% premium to the share price when we sold Amaze in March.
“The business is now not large enough to justify the costs nor benefit from a listing and therefore the board has decided to de-list the shares from AIM. However, shareholders will have the option to keep their shares in a private company.”
In the statement the firm admitted that some of its institutional investors had “explicitly” expressed a desire for a return of a substantial portion of the company’s available cash to shareholders.
