Manx Financial Regulatory News (MFX)

9 Sep 2008 07:00

For immediate release: 

9 September 2008

Conister Financial Group PLC ("CFG"

 or the "Company")

Increases stake in Equity Special Situations Limited

("ESS")

and

Issue of Equity

Conister Financial Group PLC, (AIM:CFG,L) is pleased to announce that it has agreed to increase its holding in Equity Special Situations Limited  (AIM:ESS,L), the AIM traded strategic investment company, to 18.6%. 

Since CFG's initial investment in ESS in June of this year it has become clear that, as expected, there are potentially significant synergies between CFG and ESS's existing investment portfolio of companies and the board of CFG believe that a further investment in ESS will be of considerable benefit to both companies.

CFG is acquiring 2,206,090 new ESS ordinary shares at a price of 235p per share (compared to a closing mid market price of 250p on 8 September 2008) ("the Investment"), through the issue to ESS of 7,101,798 new CFG ordinary shares at 73p per share (compared to a closing mid market price of 77p on 8 September 2008) ("Consideration Shares"), valuing the Investment at approximately £5.2 million. Following completion of the Investment, CFG's holding in ESS will be 4,248,795 ordinary shares, including the strategic stake in ESS that CFG announced that it had agreed to acquire in June 2008. ESS's holding in CFG will increase to 12,676,948 ordinary shares, representing 19.99% of CFG's enlarged issued share capital.

Application for the Consideration Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM has been made and it is expected that the Consideration Shares will begin trading on AIM on 12 September 2008. The Consideration Shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares in issue. Following the issue of the Consideration Shares, the Company will have a total of 63,416,450 ordinary shares in issue.

Arron Banks, Chief Executive of CFG commented:

"CFG continues to establish and strengthen strategic relationships with partners that have a measurable impact on the performance of the Group. The new management team at CFG is focused upon delivering shareholder value and will continue to seek and execute deals which meet the objectives of the strategic plan."

For further information please contact:

Conister Financial Group plc

Arron Banks/Chris Johnstone 

Tel: 07918 608480

Beaumont Cornish Limited

Roland Cornish 

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7628 3396