Last checked at 17 Sep 2009 07:00
ZOO Digital Group plc
("ZOO" or "The Company")
Awards under the ZOO Digital Group plc Share Incentive Plan
The Board of ZOO announces that, on 16 September 2009, the trustees of the ZOO Employee Share Trust Limited ('ZEST') transferred 116,550 ordinary shares in the Company to the trustees of the ZOO Digital Group plc, Inland Revenue approved, Share Incentive Plan (the 'SIP'). These shares are intended for appropriation to employees of the ZOO group of companies under the terms of the Plan which is an all-employee scheme as dictated by the Inland Revenue rules. The share transfer includes the award of 4,500 ordinary shares to Helen Gilder, Group Finance Director of the Company.
The ordinary shares awarded under the SIP will vest in three years' time; however, beneficiaries are entitled to take their shares out of the SIP sooner if they wish. SIP beneficiaries may withdraw half of the shares after 30 September 2009 and the remainder after 31 March 2010 but they will lose the tax benefits of being within the SIP.
There has also been an award of a total of 306,000 shares to the US staff which will be held for them in ZEST.
Following these awards the shares beneficially owned by the directors are as follows
| Total shares owned | Total SIP shares * | Total beneficial shareholding | |
| Stuart Green | 4,179,835 | 1,533 | 4,181,368 |
| Helen Gilder | 46,843 | 6,168 | 53,011 |
| Gordon Doran | - | 333 | 333 |
| Christopher Honeyborne | 1,333 | - | 1,333 |
| Ian Stewart | 1,675,365 | 333 | 1,675,698 |
| James Livingston ** | - | - | - |
* the total SIP shares held includes an award on 16 October 2007 of 1,200 shares each to Stuart Green and Helen Gilder. It has come to our attention that this award has not previously been announced.
** James Livingston has a non-beneficial interest in the shares held by Foresight Group.
The ordinary shares referred to above are the ordinary shares of 15p per share.
For further enquiries please contact
ZOO Digital Group plc 0114 241 3700
Stuart Green - Chief Executive Officer
Helen Gilder - Group Finance Director
FinnCap 0207 600 1658
Marc Young/Charles Cunningham
Threadneedle Communications 0207 653 9850
Graham Herring/Josh Royston
About ZOO Digital Group plc
ZOO Digital Group plc is a provider of creative media transformation services and software. ZOO works with printed materials, audio and visual content, and can adapt these media to different languages, sizes, and technical formats. ZOO makes this process extremely quick and cost effective and is clearly differentiated in the market.
ZOO's services are built on its proprietary patented software and enable customers to reduce considerably the costs and time to market of regionalized home entertainment titles and marketing campaigns across multiple territories and across a wide range of applications and formats, including printed materials, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, Video on Demand, interactive games and broadcast. Working closely with language translation partners, ZOO's media adaptation software suite transforms computer-based workflows through radical process re-engineering and provides clear differentiation for the company's production, consulting and custom development services.
ZOO is focused on the worldwide creative media production markets and in particular video and print production for entertainment, games and education applications, with customers including major Hollywood studios and other producers and publishers of video-based consumer products.