Redcape’s shareholders have overwhelmingly voted in favour of the pub group’s plans to delist from the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).
The proposal to delist was put forward earlier this year when the group released its end of year financial results, with CEO Dan Brady saying the share price did not reflect the value of Redcape’s asset portfolio or investor demand for the sector.
“Support from investors is very high, but in an unlisted sense,” Brady told The Shout, in August adding it was this “irrationality” that led Redcape to “review if the ASX was right the market for us”.
In his address to shareholders prior to last week’s vote Redcape Chariman Nick Collishaw said: “Since listing in November 2018, Redcape has remained highly illiquid and consistently traded at a discount to net asset value which has been a source of frustration for all securityholders.
“The size of this discount has increased significantly over the past 18 months reflecting COVID-19 related uncertainty and other market related factors which do not relate to the performance of the underlying assets of Redcape.”
He added: “The structure of the unlisted fund will remain largely identical to Redcape’s current structure. The existing majority independent Redcape board will continue to oversee the strategy and performance of Redcape on behalf of all Redcape securityholders with the manager executing the strategy and operating the assets.
“The strategy will remain unchanged with Redcape continuing to seek to provide investors with sustainable and growing distributions by investing in a diversified portfolio of high-quality pubs and hotels with refurbishment, asset recycling and alternative use opportunities from its real estate land bank.”
More than 95 per cent of the votes cast in Friday’s meeting were in favour of the proposal and investors now have until October 18 to decide whether they transfer their shares to an open-ended, unlisted find or take part in a share buy-back at $1.15 per share.
Subject to final delisting approval by the ASX, Redcape will then delist on Tuesday 2 November.