| SkillSoft announced that it has received an Order of the High Court of Ireland pursuant to Section 74 of the Companies Act 1963 confirming the reduction of the share capital of SkillSoft PLC by the cancellation of the sum of $684,750,000 from its share premium account.
The share capital of an Irish registered company consists of the amounts paid or payable in respect of its issued share capital. Under Irish law we may generally only repurchase our shares from distributable profits. The share capital reduction has eliminated our accumulated deficit and created profits available for distribution which can be applied by SkillSoft in implementing a share repurchase program in respect of our shares.
As we have previously disclosed, the share capital reduction was one of two matters that needed to be addressed in order for the company to repurchase additional shares. The second matter relates to the restrictions placed on the company's ability to repurchase shares under its current long-term debt arrangement. We are continuing to review those restrictions and our debt arrangements generally to determine whether or not we can increase the amount of cash that may be used under a share repurchase program.
In our first quarter ended April 30, 2008, the company repurchased a total of 1,211,900 shares, leaving 8,788,100 shares available for repurchase under the current shareholder approved repurchase program.
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