Mon, 25th Jan 2021 10:55 (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday. COMPANIES Tesco said it plans to return GBP4.99 billion to shareholders through a special dividend after disposing of its shareholding in Tesco Stores (Thailand) and Tesco Stores (Malaysia). Supermarket chain Tesco received GBP7.8 billion of net funds from the disposals and made a GBP2.5 billion pension contribution to its pension scheme. A further GBP4.99 billion is to be paid as a special dividend, amounting to 50.93 pence per share, subject to shareholder approval and a share consolidation on the basis of 15 new shares for every 19 existing shares. This consolidation will reduce the number of existing ordinary share in issue by around the same proportion of market capitalisation returned through the special dividend, keeping the market price of Tesco shares at a broadly similar level once the dividend payment and share consolidation are complete.