Windfall For Computacentre Investors As £75m Is Shared Out

Computacenter investors will be receiving a summer windfall as the company distributes a £75 million return on its shares.

The payment, which equates to 10.8 percent of the company’s market capitalisation, will break down into a per share return of  48.7p. The payment will be put forward for approval at an extraordinary general meeting of the shareholders on 11 June.

One-off return

Mike Norris, CEO of Computacenter, commented, “The cash-generative nature of Computacenter’s business has resulted in a net cash balance in excess of our current needs. This has placed us in a position where we are now able to make the second significant one-off return of value to our shareholders, while maintaining an appropriate balance sheet structure to continue growing the business and serving our clients.”

At the end of 2012, Computacenter’s net cash totalled £147.4 million, an increase of £10.6 million over the previous year.

This is the second time Computacenter has taken the Return of Value route. In 2006 it returned almost the same gross sum to shareholders through a one-off capital return using a B share structure. This will form the model for the current return.

The B-share cash return will be made along with a nine-for-10 share capital consolidation. The B shares can either be purchased by the company’s financial adviser and corporate broker Credit Suisse for 48.7p each or delivered as a 48.7p-per-share dividend.

The news will boost the shareholders’ faith following last month’s sharp fall in Computacenter’s share price when the company warned of its expectation to make only “modest progress” in 2013. It put this down to contractual issues in Germany and a difficult French market.