Ascential's main shareholders sell down stakes and withdraw directors

Ascential's former owners Apax Partners and Guardian Media Group have together sold £200m shares in the events and publishing company and consequently withdrawn their two representatives from the FTSE 250 company's board.

The company's main shareholders, which floated Ascential in February, planned to sell 70m shares but quickly upped this to 80m shares, representing 20% of the issued share capital, at a price of 250p per share, which was a 5.6% discount to Wednesday's closing price.

Following the accelerated book build, which will complete on 5 September and which will not see any proceeds go to Ascential, the combined holdings of these original backers of the company will drop from 59.8% to 39.8%, of which private equity group Apax will have a holding of around 24.8%, while the GMG stake will be 14.9%.

Both have agreed to a 90-day lock-up before selling any further shares.

The pair said in a statement that they retain "every confidence" in the board and management, with Apx partner Tom Hall and Guardian chief executive both stepping down from the board on the date the placing completes.

"The company has recruited and established a strong and fully code-compliant board which consisted of an independent non-executive chairman, two executive directors and four independent non-executive directors," said chairman Scott Forbes.

"The board is now fully established and well positioned to lead the governance and strategic direction of the company for the benefit of the shareholders."

Analysts at Peel Hunt said that while such a placing had been "widely anticipated" it was "pleasing to see the level of support from institutions".

Shares in Ascential were down 4.8% to 252.2p by 0845 BST on Thursday.