Property and asset management group Rugby Estates will be liquidated this year, the company confirmed today, as it posted a £3.2m loss for the year to 31 January 2012.
Chairman David Tye said group’s board was still looking for alternatives but confirmed that if none could be found it was “likely that we will seek shareholders’ consent to a delisting of the company’s shares from trading on AIM within the next few months, followed by a formal solvent liquidation within the next 12 months”.
Rugby now expects to return 440p to 480p per share on liquidation, of which 250p per share of cash will be returned to shareholders
The liquidation would bring to an end the process, announced in December 2008, of selling Rugby’s assets and returning the cash to shareholders.
The group returned £4.6m in its last financial year, bringing the total returned since 1 February 2009 to £45.4m.
This came from £4.8m of sales during the year.
It has completed a further £4.7m of sales since the year end.
Tye said: “The past year has seen continued progress with our planned realisation of value from the business and return of cash to shareholders, and we have now distributed £45.4m as part of this process. We will continue to pursue this strategy in order to generate the maximum return from our remaining portfolio, while implementing measures to reduce cash expenditure.”
jack.sidders@estatesgazette.com
