NCC Group plc shareholders have been boosted after an £185 million announcement by the Manchester cybersecurity firm this morning.
NCC said it would return £185m to them – representing a total return of £225m since the sale of its Escode division – leading to a 6% spike in its share price.
The new return will be via a combination of a £170m tender offer, with shareholders invited to tender some or all of their ordinary shares at 145 pence apiece, alongside a new £15m general share buyback programme.
The tender price represents a premium of 11% to the closing price of 130.6p on 6th July 2026.
“The company is also announcing a reduction of capital, subject to confirmation by the court, by way of a cancellation of amounts standing to the credit of the company’s share premium account which will create additional distributable reserves of £225m to facilitate the return of cash to shareholders,” it added.
The sale of NCC’s Escode business for £262.8m cash completed at the end of May. Last month it decided against a sale of its remaining cyber business.
Its latest half-year results, which included the Escode business, saw revenue increase by 5% to £151.3m, with cyber revenue increasing by 5.9% to £118.4m.
Group adjusted EBITDA increased by 27.7% to £23.5m compared with £18.4m in H1 2025. Cyber (including central and head office costs) increased by 130.6% to £8.3m.
The sale of the Escode business followed two other non-core exits for NCC – Fox-IT DetACT and Fox-IT Crypto – which completed in April 2024 and March 2025 respectively.