ELE.L Regulatory News (ELE)

8 May 2006 07:00

Electric Word PLC08 May 2006 8 May 2006 ELECTRIC WORD PLC SECOND ACQUISITION IN TWO WEEKS FURTHER STRENGHENS PUBLIC SECTOR DIVISION Electric Word plc, the specialist information publisher, announced today theacquisition of the assets of Chris Kington Publishing (CKP), the award-winningpublisher of teacher resources in the fields of thinking skills and professionaldevelopment. The initial consideration is £137,500 (£25,000 in cash and £112,500 through theissue of 1.25m Ordinary shares in Electric Word plc). There is also a deferredconsideration based on future growth which is capped at £175,000. In the year to30 June 2005 CKP broke even on sales of £120,875. As a result of the acquisitionChris Kington, who is already a Director of Electric Word plc, will lead thePublic Sector division, working full time for the Group. Chris Kington was the co-founder of Optimus Publishing, the education managementnewsletter business that was acquired by Electric Word in 2000, and previouslyled Longman's UK education business. He has also served on the Board of theOrdnance Survey and is a past President of the Geographical Association. Chief Executive Julian Turner commented: "CKP has a strong programme of productsin development, which will enhance our forward publishing list over the next twoyears. Its list complements Electric Word's existing education management andteacher resource publishing activities and database. The Company will also nowget the full benefit of Chris Kington's talents and energy and the deal will addfurther impetus to the organic development of our education books business overmany years. "Electric Word announced the acquisition of Incentive Plus Limited and IncentivePlus Publishing Limited for the total cash consideration of £2.05m and CKP isthe second acquisition the Group has announced in the past two weeks." As Chris Kington is an existing Director of Electric Word plc, the acquisitionof CKP is subject to the approval of shareholders. This approval will be soughtat an Extraordinary General Meeting to take place on 31 May 2006. Application will be made for admission of the 1,250,000 new ordinary shares totrading on AIM and dealings in the 1,250,000 new ordinary shares are expected tocommence on or about 5 June 2006. ENDS Enquiries Julian Turner, Chief ExecutiveDominic Jacquesson, DirectorElectric Word 0207 954 3470 Kim Muckle/Tim SprattFinancial Dynamics 0207 831 3113 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange