Dyson to leave stock market as banks look to take control

MATERIALS technologly business Dyson Group has announced it is proposing to delist its shares from the stock market as it nears agreement for its banks to take a majority stake in the company.

The move is part of negotiations with its banks to agree a restructuring of the business.

The Sheffield-based company, which has had its shares suspended since July 31 last year because it has not been able to publish its accounts for the year to March 31, is planning a debt and capital restructuring.

The company’s directors said that they have reached an agreement in principle with its banks which involves the conversion to equity of a significant proportion of the group’s existing bank borrowings and the provision of new secured debt facilities.

Dyson is the latest Yorkshire quoted company to announce a debt for equity swap with its banks, last year building products group Heywood Williams completed such a deal.

Earlier this year design and engineering consultancy WYG finalised a refinancing deal.

The proposals also envisage a compromise of the Dyson Group Pension Fund liabilities and the company is in discussion with the trustees of the DGPF, the PPF and the Pensions Regulator.

A key requirement of the restructuring proposals is the delisting of the company’s shares. Dyson is holding an extraordinary general meeting for shareholders to vote on the move at the offices of its financial public relations company Buchanan Communications in London on April 26.

The group has been selling off some of its subsidiary businesses and property interests in recent months and last month sold its precision ceramics division, based in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, to JEMMTEC to its management for £100,000

Last December it sold loss making subsidiary Kilm Furniture for £1 and in January it confirmed the appointment of Julian Cooper as interim chief executive working alongside chairman Cristoper Honeyborne.