4 Feb 2010 13:54
| For immediate release | 4 February 2010 |
Desire Petroleum plc
("Desire" or "the Company")
Directors' Shareholdings, Issue of Equity and TVR
The Company announces that on 2 February 2010, Phipps & Company Limited, a company in which Stephen Phipps, Chairman, and Anna Neve, a Non-executive Director, are interested, exercised 6,738,339 options over new ordinary shares in the Company at an exercise price of 32.46p per share.
These options were due to expire on 23 June 2010 and, taking into account the forthcoming drilling campaign in the North Falkland Basin, it was considered that exercising the options at this time was the only way to ensure that they could validly be exercised prior to the date of expiry.
Following the exercise Phipps & Company Limited sold 1,808,339 ordinary shares at an average price of 115.2p per share
In addition, on 2 February 2010, Ian Duncan, Chief Executive Officer, exercised 465,244 options over new ordinary shares at an exercise price of 35.21p per share. Following the exercise, Mr Duncan sold 200,444 ordinary shares at an average price of 115.3p per share.
Details of these transactions and their effect on the shareholdings of the relevant Directors are set out below:
| Director | No. of options exercised | No. of shares sold | Post-transaction shareholding
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| Stephen Phipps | 6,738,339 | 1,808,339 | 38,882,633* (11.9%) |
| Ian Duncan | 465,244 | 200,444 | 700,169** (0.21%) |
| Anna Neve | 6,738,339 | 1,808,339 | 38,662,633* (11.9%) |
* These include an interest in 35,712,633 shares held by Phipps & Company Limited and 2,840,000 shares held by the Phipps & Company Retirement Benefit Scheme.
** This includes 107,143 shares held by Chase Energy Limited.
Following the successful placing and open offer conducted by the Company in late 2009, the numbers of options and the exercise prices thereof have been all adjusted in accordance with their terms and approved by the Company's auditors, to reflect the issue of additional new ordinary shares pursuant to the placing and open offer. Details of the revised numbers of options and their respective exercise prices are contained on the Desire Petroleum website, www.desireplc.co.uk.
Application will be made for 7,203,583 new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and admission is expected to occur on 10 February 2010.
Following the exercise of the options, there are 325,890,572 ordinary shares of 1p each in issue.
For the purposes of the Disclosure and Transparency Rules, the Company's total issued share capital at the date of this notice consists of 325,890,572 ordinary shares of 1p each with one voting right per share. There are no shares held in treasury.
The above figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company, under the Disclosure and Transparency Rules.
For further information please contact:
| Desire Petroleum plc | 020 7436 0423 |
| Stephen Phipps, Chairman |
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| Dr Ian Duncan, Chief Executive Officer |
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| Seymour Pierce | 020 7107 8000 |
| Jonathan Wright |
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| Buchanan Communications | 020 7466 5000 |
| Ben Willey Ben Romney |
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