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Market Tracker weekly round-up—20 October 2017

Weekly round-up of the latest corporate announcements, including a takeover of The Prospect Franchise Group plc, a formal sale process by Sportech plc, a reorganisation by Symphony Environmental Technologies plc, returns of value to shareholders by Man Group plc and SOFTCAT plc, an AGM notice from Petra Diamonds Ltd and 7 secondary offers.
The weekly round-up covers all deals announced from the Monday of the previous week until 2pm on the Friday of the previous week. Any deals announced after this time will be included in the following day's round-up.The information contained in the weekly round up is republished in the monthly round up at the end of the month. To access previous announcements please visit the Market Tracker homepage.

New deals announced:

AGMs

Announcement date Company Industry sector Key information
16 October 2017 Petra Diamonds Limited Mining, metals & extraction Petra Diamonds Limited announced that its 2017 AGM will be held on 24 November 2017.

LR/AIM Rules transactions

Announcement date Company Industry sector Key information
19 October 2017 Homeserve plc Professional services Homeserve has announced a related party transaction under the Listing Rules.
18 October 2017 Hilton Food Group plc Food & Beverages Hilton Food Group has announced a class 1 transactions under the Listing Rules.

Reorganisations

Announcement date Company Industry sector Key information
19 October 2016 Symphony Environmental Technologies plc Engineering & manufacturing Symphony Environmental Technologies plc has announced a proposed reduction of capital. As a result of numerous share issues, the Company has standing to the credit of its share premium account £3,608,041 in undistributable reserves. The Company’s proposal aims to create distributable reserves by cancelling the amount standing to the credit of the share premium account and transferring it to the Company’s profit and loss account. There will be no change in the number of Ordinary Shares in issue (or their nominal value) following the implementation of the capital reduction. The capital reduction will not in itself involve and distribution or repayment of capital by the Company.

Returns of value to shareholders

Announcement date Company Industry sector Key information
19 October 2017 Man Group plc Financial services Man Group announced that is has agreed to enter into an irrevocable, non-discretionary arrangement with Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Limited to repurchase, on its behalf, ordinary shares in the company up to a maximum consideration of $100 million and subject to certain pre-set parameters, during the period from 19 October 2017 up to and including 18 October 2018.
The purpose of the programme is to return surplus capital to shareholders. The number of shares to be acquired is estimated to be around 40 million.
18 October 2017 SOFTCAT plc Computing & IT SOFTCAT announced a proposed special dividend payment of 13.5p per share, to be paid on 15 December 2017 to all ordinary shareholders who were on the register of members at the close of business on 3 November 2017.
Shareholders will be asked to approve the special dividend at the AGM on 8 December 2017.

Secondary offers

Announcement date Issuer Industry sector Key information
20 October 2017 Jersey Oil and Gas plc Oil & gas Jersey Oil & Gas has announced its intention to undertake an equity placement of £20 million. The placing will be launched with immediate effect by way of an accelerated bookbuild.
20 October 2017 eServGlobal Limited Computing & IT eServGlobal has announced an accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer and institutional placement to raise approximately £23.75 million before costs.
The number of shares to be issued under the institutional placement is 53,272,003 to raise approximately £4.75 million.
As an accelerated entitlement offer, the Entitlement Offer will be conducted in two phases, an initial offer to selected institutional holders (Institutional Offer) with all other eligible holders able to participate in a subsequent offer (Retail Offer). The Institutional Offer will offer 175,706,717 new shares and is expected to raise approximately £15.64 million. The Retail Offer will comprise 37,687,946 new shares to raise approximately £3.38 million.
19 October 2016 HomeServe plc Professional services HomeServe has announced a non-premptive placing of new ordinary shares to raise up to £125 million which represents approximately 5% of the existing issued share capital of the company. The Placing is being conducted through an accelerated bookbuild process.
18 October 2016 Gocompare.com Group plc Media & telecommunications Gocompare.com Group has announced that it has been informed that Sir Peter Wood is proposing to sell approximately 21.3 million ordinary shares in the Company representing approximately 5.1% of the Company's issued share capital.
18 October 2017 Hilton Food Group plc Food & Beverages Hilton Food Group has announced its intention to conduct a non-pre-emptive underwritten cash placing to raise gross proceeds of £55.9 million to part-fund the Acquisition through the issue of new ordinary shares at an indicative price per share of 760 pence to be confirmed pursuant to an accelerated bookbuilding process.
18 October 2017 RWS Holdings plc Professional services RWS Holdings has announced its intention to undertake an equity placing of up to 45,000,000 new ordinary shares of 1 pence each in the capital of the Company, equivalent to approximately 20%. of the Company's existing issued share capital. The placing, which is underwritten, is intended to raise gross proceeds of approximately £185m before expenses.
16 October 2017 Impact Healthcare REIT plc Investment Impact Healthcare REIT has announced a placing of up to 32,034,471 ordinary shares, representing 19.99% of the company's issued share capital and raising gross proceeds of up to approximately £32.6 million.
The placing is conditional, inter alia, on shareholders' approval of resolutions, which would grant the board the authority to allot and issue the placing shares on a non-pre-emptive basis, at a general meeting on 6 November 2017.The placing price is 101.75 pence per placing share, being equal to NAV per ordinary share plus the associated costs of the placing.

Takeovers

Announcement date Deal Industry sector Key information
19 October 2017 The Property Franchise Group plc possible offer by Belvoir Lettings plc Property Belvoir announced a possible merger for The Property Franchise Group.
19 October 2017 Sportech plc- formal sale process Travel, hospitality, leisure & tourism Sportech announced after its strategic review its has now commenced a formal sale process.
Filed Under: Round-ups

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