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(Alliance News) - Ascential PLC on Thursday provided further details on plans to return GBP850 million to shareholders, outlined in March.
The London-based events, subscription business and advisory services-focused company said the proposals include a tender offer, special dividend plus a share buyback.
Ascential said the tender offer would return up to GBP300 million to shareholders by acquiring up to 95.2 million shares, around 21% of Ascential's share capital, at a price between 315 pence and 331p per share.
Shares in Ascential rose 4.0% to 317.30p each in London on Thursday.
Ascential said the tender offer would have a positive impact on the group's earnings per share.
The company also plans to return GBP450 million via a special dividend and GBP100 million by a share buy back.
Should the tender offer be under subscribed, the value of the special dividend will be increased, it said.
The total value of the tender offer and special dividend will be GBP750 million.
Ascential said it has chosen a special dividend as a method of returning the major proportion of the proceeds of the sales of digital commerce and WGSN because it can be "executed efficiently and provides a fixed return that is not impacted by unrelated market movements."
Ascential said it also plans a share consolidation with the ratio to be announced by May 8.
In October, Ascential agreed to sell its digital commerce business to Omnicom Group Inc and its product design business to funds advised by Apax Partners LLP.
The sales were for a combined enterprise value of GBP1.4 billion and brought it cash proceeds of GBP1.2 billion.
By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter
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