Wolves pledges £100m to shareholders

Takeover target Wolverhampton & Dudley (W&D) has pledged to return £100m to shareholders by the end of the year if it can raise £65m from sales of some of its pubs and development sites. In an effort to defeat the £435m hostile bid by Pubmaster, W&D said it had already received offers totalling £121m for 112 of the 170 pubs and sites it intends to sell. Total proceeds from sales are expected to amount to £135m. The brewer and pub operator also announced that it is forecasting profit before tax for the year to 29 September up by 16.9% on last year to £76m. W&D continues to urge its shareholders to reject the Pubmaster bid, saying the offer of 480p per share ignores the improvement in the company's trading performance and offers shareholders poor value.