FCA regulated Retail Forex, CFDs and Spread Betting broker London Capital Group Holdings plc (LON:LCG) has announced that it plans to hold a shareholder vote on delisting the company’s shares from trading on the London Stock Exchange AIM market on February 6.
When LCG originally announced its plans to delist from the LSE in late December, it didn’t give an exact date for the delisting, just that it would convene a shareholders meeting to vote on the matter “in the coming weeks.”
The February 6 delisting vote should be just a formality. The delisting requires three-quarters of shareholders to approve the move. And, the company’s controlling shareholder GLIO Holdings owns 78.14% of the company and intends to (of course) vote in favour of the move. GLIO is controlled by Charles-Henri Sabet, who also acts as LCG’s CEO.
The move doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, as LCG also announced in December that it was listing its shares on the NEX Exchange Growth Market run by NEX Group PLC (LON:NXG), known as ‘the other London stock exchange’.
The delisting move is being done mainly as a cost cutting exercise. Listings on the NEX Exchange are much less costly to maintain than on the AIM. And, LCG hadn’t seen much trading activity in its stock in the past year, as the company continues it turnaround under an investor group which bought the company about three years ago, led by CEO Charles-Henri Sabet.
The full announcement made by LCG on the matter reads as follows:
8 January 2018
London Capital Group Plc
Further re. proposed cancellation of admission to trading on AIM
Notice of General Meeting
As previously announced on 22 December 2017, following discussions with representatives of the Company’s largest shareholder, GLIO Holdings Limited (“GLIO Holdings”), the Company has decided to seek shareholder approval to cancel trading in its ordinary shares on AIM (the “Cancellation”).
The Company will shorty post to its shareholders a circular (the “Circular”) in connection with the Cancellation containing a notice convening a general meeting of the Company (the “General Meeting”) to be held at 10.30 a.m. on 6 February 2018 at the Company’s offices, 77 Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, London, W1K 3JR. Cancellation will be conditional on the consent of not less than 75 per cent. of votes cast by shareholders in person or by proxy. Shareholders should note that GLIO Holdings owns 78.14 per cent. of the Company’s issued share capital. GLIO has indicated to the Board of the Company that it intends to vote in favour of the cancellation of trading in the Company’s shares on AIM.
The Directors (other than the directors who are independent of GLIO Holdings, being Frank Chapman and Nicholas Lee) believe that the proposed Cancellation is in the best interests of the Company and its Shareholders as a whole.
The above summary should be read in conjunction with the full text of this announcement and the Circular. Extracts from the Circular, which sets out the background to and reasons for the Company seeking Cancellation, are set out below and a copy of the Circular will shortly be available on the Company’s website.