Investor backing for Dyson market de-listing

Shares in the Sheffield company will today cease to trade on the London Stock Exchange.

Dyson entered the recession with a heavy debt burden and significant exposure to the slumping automotive industry.

The 200-year-old company said de-listing was necessary as its capital reorganisation would mean it no longer meets stock market rules.

The next step should see its banks Lloyds TSB and Svenska Handelsbanken take a 51 per cent stake in return for wiping out 35m of its debt. Shareholders would be left with 12 per cent of the company's equity.

Some 91.5 per cent of shareholders voting at the meeting yesterday approved the de-listing, while 8.5 per cent were against it.

Dyson warned the alternative was insolvency, leaving shareholders with nothing.

The debt-for-equity swap will also see banks issued with 5m of redeemable preferred shares.

The company's pension fund is due to receive 33 per cent of Dyson's equity in non-voting shares, and an employee benefit trust will receive the remaining four per cent.