Exercise of Options and Issue of Shares

21 July 2008

On 16 July 2008, the former board of directors of the Company (the "Former Board"):

  1. granted Mr Derek Vago an option to subscribe for a further 1,000,000 ordinary shares of 0.1p each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares"); and
  2. conditional on the passing of all resolutions at the Company's extraordinary general meeting held on 17 July 2007 (the "EGM"), (i) issued and allotted 12,245,000 Ordinary Shares pursuant to the exercise of options granted by the Former Board and (ii) made arrangements for 2,073,823 Ordinary Shares to vest under the employee share award scheme.

These arrangements were put in place without the involvement or approval of the new directors of the Company appointed at the EGM (the "New Directors"). The New Directors are investigating the circumstances surrounding the grant and exercise of these options.

Application to the London Stock Exchange has been made for the 12,245,000 new Ordinary Shares of 0.1p each to be admitted to trading on AIM ("Admission"). It is expected that Admission will become effective on 25 July 2008.

The new Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with the existing Ordinary Shares of the Company.

Following the issue of the new Ordinary Shares, the Company has 208,341,941 fully paid ordinary shares in issue.

Enquiries:

  • Rob Bailhache & Nick Henderson, Financial Dynamics (Media Relations) +44 (0) 20 7269 7200
  • Sacha Macintosh, ACP Capital UK LLP +44 (0) 844 800 4530
  • Clayton Bush / Simon Stilwell, Liberum Capital Ltd +44 (0) 203 100 2000
  • Philip Secrett, Grant Thornton Capital Markets +44 (0) 207 383 5100

About ACP Capital

ACP Capital is a Jersey-incorporated specialist integrated finance and asset management company, quoted on AIM and focused on providing equity and debt products to European small and medium sized enterprises (the “SMEs”).

ACP Capital aims to benefit from opportunities generated from the strong growth in SME demand for integrated finance, combined with the reduced appetite for SME lending among traditional banks owing to higher regulatory capital requirements.

In order to better serve the SME markets directly, ACP Capital is establishing localised operating platforms (the "Platforms") in its key markets of Germany, France and the United Kingdom. These include to-date Leasecom, a leading SME finance provider in France, and GCI, a specialist private equity firm for the German SME market. Further Platforms are being evaluated currently to serve the remaining key markets.