Former Tory chair Lord Ashcroft sells recruitment firm for £483m, netting £300m

Lord Ashcroft

Former Conservative chair Lord Ashcroft will pocket hundreds of millions from the sale of his recruitment firm, Impellam.

The businessman and Tory peer announced this morning he would sell his majority stake in the company to HeadFirst, valued at £483m.

This comes after Ashcroft notified the London-listed firm of his intention to explore selling it, last year.

Shareholders will be allowed a 55.9p dividend declared in November, in addition to more which Impellam hasn’t declared yet; but which taken together will total 1,084.4p per Impellam share.

This represents a windfall of more than £300m for Lord Ashcroft, who has 28,019,055 shares.

Following the announcement, the AIM-listed firm’s shares increased by more than 42 per cent.

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Lord Ashcroft said he was “delighted” with the deal, adding that “on completion of the acquisition, not only will significant value have been created for Impellam shareholders, but the combined strengths of Impellam and HeadFirst will create a market leading, more digitally enabled, diverse service offering with increased geographic reach which will benefit all our global colleagues, customers, candidates and suppliers.”

Han Kolff, chair of HeadFirst, said: “This merger will be transformational, building on the complementary strengths of Impellam and HeadFirst.

“Together we will become a global leader in mission-critical data, tech and engineering talent enabling us to service our customers, suppliers and professionals in an unrivalled manner. There is a very exciting journey ahead with ample opportunities for our teams, leveraging HR tech depth and geographic reach further and faster.”