Visteon Completes Sale Of Ownership Stake In Halla Visteon Climate Control Corp.

(RTTNews) - Visteon Corporation (VC) said it has completed the sale of its approximately 70 percent ownership interest in Halla Visteon Climate Control Corp. or HVCC to an affiliate of Hahn & Company, and Hankook Tire Co. Ltd., for about $3.6 billion or 52,000 KRW/share.

Visteon also announced it will commence a shareholder capital return program in the second quarter of this year.

Announced in December 2014, the sale of Visteon's ownership stake in HVCC represents an enterprise value for HVCC of approximately 10.1 times EBITDA for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2014. As a result of this sale, Visteon is now a technology-focused, pure-play supplier of automotive cockpit electronics and connected car solutions - one of the world's leading providers of vehicle information and controls, audio and infotainment, and domain controllers.

As previously announced, Visteon said it expects to return $2.5 billion to$2.75 billion of cash to shareholders over the next 12 months via a series of actions including buybacks and special distributions. The first action is expected to involve a $500 million buyback in the form of an accelerated share repurchase program to be executed as soon as practicable and completed no later than Dec. 31, 2015.

After completing the capital return program, Visteon expects to be well-capitalized and well-positioned for both organic growth and value-accretive acquisitions.