Notts Forest to kick quote into touch

NOTTINGHAM Forest today blew the final whistle on four torrid years as a public company, announcing plans to quit the stock market. The troubled football club has applied to de-list its shares after the London Stock Exchange refused to allow it to sidestep the rule requiring the directors to approve a rescue deal by controlling shareholder Nigel Doughty. A lifelong Forest fan, he is chief executive of private equity group Doughty Hanson.

'The directors have therefore concluded that if the company wished to proceed with the proposals at this time, it would first have to cancel the admission of its shares to AIM,' it said.

Forest did not explain why the directors were not prepared to describe the proposal as 'fair and reasonable' - the standard procedure for transactions involving a related party. Shareholders would have the chance to vote on the deal, it said.

Forest shares, floated at 70p in 1997, were suspended at 12p in December after the company failed to meet a deadline for its annual results. Doughty has offered to inject £5m at a rights-issue price of 2.3p a share.