Admiral Regulatory News (ADM)

12 Jul 2007 08:53

Admiral Group PLC12 July 2007 Admiral Group Plc today reports that it has ended discussions with potentialprivate equity investors regarding its subsidiary price comparison business,Confused.com. After careful consideration of the offers made, the Board ofAdmiral Group have decided to terminate this consultation process. In response to interest shown, discussions were held with a number of privateequity firms about the sale of a minority interest in the Confused business.Potential minority investors typically expressed an interest with an impliedvaluation of the entire business in the range of £600m to £650m. However, thecorporate structure and governance demanded by minority investors wassignificantly more onerous than the Board had anticipated. The Board hastherefore concluded that this weakening in its flexibility to determine thestrategy of Confused would restrict the ability to maximise Confused's potentialas part of the Admiral Group in the medium to long term. It is for these reasons that the Board at present believes that it is in ourshareholders' best interests for the Group to retain a 100% interest in Confusedand to continue to follow our clearly defined growth strategy for the business.That strategy is focused on maintaining Confused's strong market share of carinsurance price comparison; on maximising the value created for shareholdersfrom that position; and on exploiting fully the potential for Confused derivedfrom the growth of price comparison in other product areas. The Group's interim results will be announced on Tuesday 4 September 2007. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange