Marechale Cap. Regulatory News (MAC)

23 Dec 2009 14:31



St Helen's Capital Plc ('St Helen's Capital' or the 'Company')

Interim Results

St Helen's Capital, announces its unaudited results for the six months ended 30 September 2009.

Chairman's Statement

Since I last reported to you, St. Helen's Capital has undergone significant structural changes. 

On 14 September we announced that we had sold the Plus Markets Adviser and AIM broking businesses to Whim Gully as outlined in the circular sent to shareholders on 28 August 2009. This had the effect of reducing the significant cash outflow from the business and also increased the cash reserves by around 40 per cent.

On the 23 November 2009 we announced the acquisition of Marechale Capital Limited ("Marechale") and the appointment of Patrick Booth-Clibborn to the board of St Helen's Capital ("the Board") as Chief Executive. Patrick has 22 years investment banking and broking experience including being a founding director at Noble & Co and Director of Corporate Finance at KBC Peel Hunt.

Marechale is a corporate finance advisory and capital fund raising business focusing on fundraising for growth companies and funds. It outsources costly non-core functions such as research and M&A, and revenues are generated from fees, warrants and equity investments in lieu of fees.

Mr Booth-Clibborn's deal flow (acquired by St Helen's Capital through the acquisition of Marechale) offers a low cost and significantly de-risked opportunity to generate revenues and profitability. I am pleased to report that revenues are already being generated and invoiced. We have also given a commitment to keep costs to the absolute minimum (and initially in line with the costs agreed by shareholders for operating the cash shell). In order to preserve the Company's cash, the Marechale deal has been satisfied by the issue of shares, which was approved by shareholders at the Annual General Meeting on 17 December 2009.

The Company intends to use its cash and equity to make complimentary acquisitions and investments in the financial services sector. The Board are already reviewing two possible opportunities.

The task of selling the old business and establishing a new, low cost and de-risked operation has been completed. The Board's objective is now to move the business back into profitability.

The Board had also proposed a strategic share swap with the fund management group Bluehone. We believe that the deal that had been negotiated with Bluehone would have been a good investment and also offered business synergies. The majority of shareholders voted in favour of the Bluehone transaction at last week's AGM, but the resolution required to enable the share swap was not passed owing to the  special resolution requiring 75 per cent. support; therefore, the Bluehone transaction has not proceeded at this stage. The Board has now decided not to proceed with the Bluehone share swap proposal at this time, although it will keep this and other possible synergistic deals under review.

Following the recent AGM, at which certain resolutions were not passed, we will convene a further general meeting in the New Year, at which shareholders will be asked to approve the Company's change of name, which is a requirement of the sale of the Company's business assets, and the adoption of the Company's new Articles of Association which is necessary to reflect changes to the Company's Act 2006.

Whilst there remains great uncertainty in the financial markets, we believe that there are also numerous opportunities and that there is excellent value in the Smaller company sector.

Mark Warde-Norbury

Chairman

23 December 2009

For further information visit www.sthelenscapital.com or contact: