12 Jan 2011 09:57
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12 January 2010
@UK PLC
("@UK" or the "Company")
PLACING OF NEW ORDINARY SHARES
@UK, the AIM-traded eMarketplace and provider of eProcurement and eCommerce software, announces today that it has placed 5,305,000 new Ordinary Shares at a price of 5p per Ordinary Share raising £265,250 ("Placing"). The 5p price was a discount of 26% to the prevailing market price when set last week. This provides additional funds for marketing, sales and working capital.
Ronald Duncan, Executive Chairman of @UK PLC commented:
"We are delighted with the support shown last week by our long term institutional investors. This will enable us to maximise our opportunities over the next 3 months as we approach the public sector year-end and assist us in bidding for higher value contracts.
Following last week's joint letter to the Cabinet from Francis Maude, the Paymaster General, and Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, urging tight control on discretionary spend, we expect departments to focus any remaining discretionary spend on areas that will generate savings in the coming years, easing the transition to the tighter budgets set out in the spending review.
This should assist @UK in the marketing of our eProcurement solutions to the public sector with their proven ability to identify savings in an environmentally sustainable manner."
Application has been made for the 5,305,000 new ordinary shares, which will when issued rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares, to be admitted to trading on AIM and trading is expected to commence on 25 January 2011.
Following completion of the new share issue, Ronald and Lyn Duncan's family holdings in the Company remain at 20,204,118 ordinary shares representing 28.9% of the enlarged issued share capital.
As a result of the Placing, funds managed by Majedie Asset Management's will have an interest in 4,247,642 ordinary shares representing 6% of the enlarged share capital.
The Company's Employee Benefit Trust intends to purchase approximately 1,000,000 new Ordinary Shares on the same terms subject to regulatory and administrative process, and a further announcement will be made once this has been completed.
Following completion of the Placing, @ UK will have an issued share capital of 70,221,997 Ordinary Shares.
Currently, the Board has no plans or requirements to raise additional capital.
@UK PLC
Ronald Duncan
Chairman
Tel: 0118 963 7000
Beaumont Cornish Limited
Roland Cornish
Tel 0207 628 3396
Threadneedle Communications
Caroline Evans-Jones, Alex White
Tel 020 7653 9850
Notes to Editors
@UK PLC is the UK market leader in Platform as a Service using Platform Generator and provides secure cloud based eCommerce, eProcurement and email services to business and the public sector with over 1 million users.
@UK provides a secure internet eMarketplace enabling buyers such as local authorities, schools and hospitals to buy online from commercial suppliers ranging from large corporations to small to medium enterprises. This allows buying and selling to take place with no paperwork and a reduced chance of errors through transposition, achieving major savings throughout the supply chain.
@UK has a key competitive advantage as an ecommerce based marketplace as it ensures that prices are correct from requisition through to payment, where catalogue based marketplaces are unable to support carriage, complex pricing and configurable products.
@UK is included in the Software and Computer Services Sector (9530). For further information please visit www.uk-plc.net
ENDS