Polar Capital Regulatory News (POLR)

20 December 2010

Polar Capital Holdings plc ("Polar Capital" or the "Company")

Director's Dealings - Award of Share Options as Equity Settled Share Appreciation Rights ("ESARs")

Polar Capital announces that, on 20 December 2010, Mr. Tim Woolley the Chief Executive of the Company, was granted a share option over a total of 1,000,000 ordinary shares of 2.5p each in the Company at an exercise price of 145p per share.

The Option is not subject to any performance conditions and will become exercisable as to one third on each of the vesting dates, being 31 March 2012, 31 March 2013 and 31 March 2014.

The Option is subject to the requirement that in order to be able to exercise the Option, the Option holder must be employed by the Company on the relevant vesting date, subject to certain defined "good leaver" situations.

The Option will lapse unless exercised within 10 years from the date of grant.

The Option will be satisfied in accordance with the rules of the Polar Capital Equity Incentive Plan, by the use of the provisions relating to Equity Settled Share Appreciation Rights ("ESARs"). The use of the ESARs provisions allows the Company to issue to the option holder only the number of shares that would equate to the number of shares over which the option becomes exercisable less the number of shares that would need to be sold to fund the purchase of that number of shares on that exercise date.

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