Whitcoulls sold

WH Smith PLC has announced that it has reached an agreement with Pacific Equity Partners, a private equity group based in Sydney, to sell the ASPAC Retail business consisting of its retail businesses in Australia (Angus & Robertson), New Zealand (Whitcoulls) and Hong Kong but excluding the Singapore Airport operations, for A$115m (£47m) in cash.

The agreement is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions precedent including financing, regulatory approvals and certain landlord consents.

If the conditions are satisfied, the price will represent a significant gain on the carrying value of assets and will result in an exceptional gain in the second half of the current financial year.

In the year to August 31 the ASPAC Retail business (excluding the Singapore Airport operations) generated £5m of operating profit and at 31 August 2003 had net assets of £28m.

The proceeds from disposal will be used for general corporate purposes.

     

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

CVT - Update on banking facilities
April 9th Morning Report
April 8th Morning Report
ATM - In principle agreement to settle shareholder class action
SUM - 1Q26 Metrics - Sales of Occupation Rights
GMT corporatised and stapled structure completed
April 7th Morning Report
KMD completes Placement and Institutional Entitlement Offer
SML - North Island asset sale completed
RAD - Radius Care Expansion Continues with Care Home Acquisition