IQ-AI Regulatory News (IQAI)

18 Apr 2005 14:54

Flying Brands Limited18 April 2005 Monday, 18 April 2005 FLYING BRANDS LIMITED COMPLETION OF ACQUISITION OF SILVER MINDS DIRECT Flying Brands, the Jersey based home shopping company, today announces thecompletion of the acquisition of the assets of Silver Minds Direct, a music CD,video and DVD home shopping retailer. The assets that have been acquired are a database of 380,000 names and addresses(including 140,000 customers who have purchased at least one product in the last24 months), the internet domain names, and the rights to the images andintellectual property of all former promotional campaigns of the business. At the same time, Flying Brands has signed a two year agreement with ThamesDistributors to create, license and supply appropriate products for the SilverMinds' catalogues and web sites. The total consideration for this acquisition is £620,000. Silver Minds Direct was launched in 1999 and had sales of £3 million in 2004. Itmarkets a range of nostalgic and special interest music and video/DVD productsthat are not widely available in High Street retail outlets. The customer baseis predominantly aged 55+ with a slight bias towards males, which complementsFlying Brands' existing customers in a growing and increasingly profitablemarket segment. Thames Distributors was founded in 1979 and won the Queen's Award to Industryfor Export Services in 1998. With over 25 years' experience in the musicpublishing industry, Thames Distributors supplies products from all the majorrecord labels in the UK. Mark Dugdale, Chief Executive of Flying Brands, said: "We are delighted thatSilver Minds is joining the Flying Brands family. It fits our strategy of makingacquisitions in the gifts, hobbies and entertainment sectors, will sitcomfortably alongside Listen2Books, our fast growing audio books business, andwill be assimilated very quickly into our existing infrastructure without anysignificant increase in central overheads. Our arrangements with ThamesDistributors will ensure that we have access to a forward pipeline of winningproducts, and we are confident that we now have the basis for developing astrong and profitable home entertainment division. We anticipate that we will bepromoting the first Silver Minds catalogue next month." For further information, please contact: Flying Brands Limited 01376 575 010Mark Dugdale, Chief Executive Smithfield 020 7360 4900George Hudson Notes to editors Jersey based Flying Brands Limited (LSE: FBDU) is a leading home shoppingcompany. Founded in 1965, it was admitted to the Official List of the LondonStock Exchange in 1993. The Group has the following brands: • Flying Flowers, the UK's largest flowers by post brand, despatching nearly one million bouquets a year• Gardening Direct, one of the UK's largest mail order bedding plants and gardening products operations• Listen2Books, the leading mail order audio books distributor• Benham, the first day cover stamps and coins collectables specialist More information can be found at: www.flyingbrands.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange