Overview

On 7th September 2015, Tesco agreed to sell Homeplus to a group of investors led by MBK Partners and including Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited. This followed a competitive sale process and represented an enterprise value of £4.24bn. Black&Callow was appointed to typeset, produce and mail the deal documentation.

Black&Callow’s Customer Services Manager, Peter Duhig, has been working with Black&Callow for 16 years, and specialises in Domestic Corporate Finance. He also has a great deal of expertise in handling Insolvency and Restructuring projects. He has a steady record of meeting critical deadlines in M&A deals, Equity and Debt Capital Market transactions, whilst having vast experience in Investor and Shareholder communications. Here he explains how Black&Callow’s seamless customer service was prominent in efficiently delivering the deal documentation.

Peter Duhig

The Challenges

"Tesco needed to send documents to 180,000 shareholders seeking their approval for the deal. Due to differing shareholder requirements, we had 3 different mailing grids encompassing the 48 page Circular, Forms of Proxy and Notices of Availability. It was critical to ensure that no shareholder was disadvantaged by receiving documents later than any other shareholder."

How did we add value?

  • Our in-house typesetting team, based at our HQ in London, made a critical difference to the success of this project. The deal had greater confidentiality and time was saved due to our unrivalled capacity.
  • Given the deadlines involved, we worked against the clock to ensure that all documents were accurately & securely amended and could be signed-off, printed & mailed to deadlines.

What are Peter's tips?

  • "Work with the Royal Mail ahead of time. Once the advisors approved the documents, our focus was on completing the mailing of the documents on time. We actively split the mailings between printing plants & mailing teams in London and Nottingham - each located close to a main Royal Mail District Office to ensure documents could be handled in bulk immediately."
  • "Ensure your printer can produce Comparison files in-line, not offline. Our guaranteed LSE-compliant strikethrough blacklined and Comparison files are driven direct from our typesetting system, ensuring there are no issues at Stock Exchange approval stages."
  • "Consider the environment. E-Comms can save considerable costs if you have a large shareholder base like Tesco, so those who opt not to receive a hard-copy Circular can be directed to a website to allow them to access documentation online."

"Our customer service focuses on putting the client first and we aim to make our clients’ journey easier.

As the only financial printer to be a member of the Institute of Customer Service, our team works tirelessly to help clients, and it was a great pleasure to learn afterwards how pleased Tesco and its advisors were with our work on the deal.”