Driver Grp Regulatory News (DRV)

7 Apr 2006 17:07

Driver Group plc07 April 2006 7 April 2006 DRIVER GROUP PLC ("Driver" or "the Company") Issue of Equity and Holdings in Company The Company announces that in order to satisfy institutional demand and furtherstrengthen the shareholder base, a placing of 500,000 new ordinary shares of0.4p each ("Ordinary Shares") at 73p per share to ISIS Equity Partners plc ("ISIS") has been completed. Following the placing, funds under the management ofISIS will increase to an aggregate of 2,400,000 Ordinary Shares, representing9.70% of the Company's enlarged issued Ordinary Share capital. Application has been made for the new Ordinary Shares to be admitted to tradingon AIM and dealings are expected to commence on 13 April 2006. The new OrdinaryShares will rank pari passu with the existing Ordinary Shares in issue andincrease the number of Ordinary Shares in issue to 24,732,874. At the same time, the Company's Employee Benefit Trust has agreed to acquire1,527,397 Ordinary Shares at 73p per share from the following employeeshareholders: Shareholder Number of Ordinary SharesR.Peter Davison 1,277,397Paul Battrick 100,000Gary Kitt 100,000Jason Stephens 50,000 Driver has agreed to advance £1,114,999.81 to the Employee Benefit Trust inorder to facilitate the purchase of shares by the trust. Following this transaction, the shareholding in the Company of R.P. Davison willfall to 7.98% and the shareholdings of P. Battrick and G. Kitt will each fall to4.65%. The Employee Benefit Trust will own 6.88% of the issued share capital ofthe Company. J. Stephens does not have a material interest in the ordinaryshare capital of the Company. The Directors of Driver are committed to attracting new senior level staff andrewarding existing employees and accordingly these shares will be held andoptions in respect of them will be granted to employees in the future. For further information, please contact: Driver Group plc: Steve Driver, Chief Executive Tel: 0870 873 7878 WH Ireland Limited: David Youngman Tel: 0161 832 2174 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange