Last checked at 18 Dec 2023 10:10
18 December 2023
ASCENTIAL PLC
Results of General Meeting
and update on regulatory reviews
Results of the General Meeting
Ascential plc ("Ascential" or the "Company") announces the results of voting on the resolutions at its general meeting held at 10:00am today (the "General Meeting").
The General Meeting was held to invite shareholders to consider resolutions in connection with the proposed sales of the Company's digital commerce business to Omnicom Group Inc. (the "Digital Commerce Sale") and its product design business to Wind UK Bidco 3 Limited, a newly formed company established by funds advised by Apax Partners LLP (the "WGSN Sale"), as described in the announcement released on 30 October 2023 and the circular (including the Notice of General Meeting) published on 1 December 2023.
The Company is pleased to announce that each of the interconditional ordinary resolutions approving the Digital Commerce Sale and the WGSN Sale were duly passed by the requisite majority of the Company's shareholders. The results of the votes are shown in the table below and will also be available on the Company's website.
Resolution | Votes For | Votes Against | Total Votes Cast (Excluding votes withheld) | Votes withheld | |||
| Number of shares | % | Number of shares | % | Number of shares | % of relevant shares in issue
| Number of shares |
To approve the Digital Commerce Sale | 349,214,541 | 98.63 | 4,836,009 | 1.37 | 354,050,550 | 79.61 | 9,049 |
To approve the WGSN Sale
| 349,213,801 | 98.63 | 4,836,105 | 1.37 | 354,049,906 | 79.61 | 9,693 |
The total voting rights of the Company as at 6:30pm on 14 December 2023, the time by which shareholders wanting to attend, speak and vote at the General Meeting were required to be entered on the register, was 444,738,720 ordinary shares of 1p each. The Company does not hold any shares in treasury.
Any vote that gave the Chairman discretion has been included in the 'For' votes. A vote withheld is not a vote in law and is not counted towards the votes cast 'For' or 'Against' a resolution.
In accordance with Listing Rule 9.6.2R, a copy of the resolutions will shortly be available for inspection at the National Storage Mechanism document viewing facility at
https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism.
Update on regulatory processes
The Company is also pleased to announce that in respect of the Digital Commerce Sale and the WGSN Sale, all required regulatory processes are progressing as expected, with no objections raised to date, and the transactions remain on course to complete early in Q1 2024.
Enquiries:
Ascential plc | |
Duncan Painter, Chief Executive Officer | +44 (0)20 7516 5000 |
Mandy Gradden, Chief Financial Officer |
|
Rory Elliott, Investor Relations Director |
|
|
|
FTI Consulting LLP, Media enquiries |
|
Matt Dixon | +44 (0)20 3727 1000 |
Jamie Ricketts | |
Edward Bridges
| |