EGM Statement

21 Aug 2006 11:42

Cohen(A.) & Co PLC21 August 2006 FOR RELEASE 21 August 2006 A.Cohen & Co. PLC (to be re-named Crimson Tide plc) (the "Company") Extraordinary General Meeting approves acquisition of Crimson Tide Limited At the Extraordinary General Meeting ("EGM") held today, all the resolutionswere passed including the change of name to Crimson Tide plc ("Crimson Tide"). Dealings in the New Ordinary Shares are due to commence tomorrow, 22 August2006. After the EGM, Barrie Whipp, who will be appointed Executive Chairman of CrimsonTide on admission, made the following comments on current trading: "I am delighted that the acquisition of Crimson Tide has received overwhelmingshareholder support. Considering the amount of executive time taken in preparingfor the flotation, Crimson Tide has continued to make good progress. With theadditional funds in place, we will now be able to expand the business at afaster pace and take advantage of the many opportunities available to us. Handheld computers and smartphones are increasingly being recognised asessential tools for business and there is clearly growing demand for theservices we offer. These include remote e-mail, customer relationship managementsystems and a range of solutions to improve the effectiveness of key people whenthey are away from their offices and factories. The fact that we offer theseservices on a subscription basis is proving attractive to our customers and willenable us to increase our recurring revenue base, which will give us increasedvisibility of future earnings. The business has established excellent partnerships with Sage, Palm and GoodTechnology. It is the strength of these relationships, our team and our growingcustomer base that gives us confidence in the long term prospects for thebusiness." For further information, please contact: Crimson Tide plc Barrie Whipp (Executive Chairman) Tel: 01892 542 444Graham Ashley (Non Executive Director) Tel: 020 7747 7400 Former Executive Chairman of A. Cohen & Co. PLC W H Ireland Limited Tim Cofman-Nicoresti / Katy Birkin Tel: 0121 616 2101 Cubitt Consulting Tel: 020 7367 5100 Leanne Denman / Allison Reid / Nia Thomas BACKGROUND NOTE ON CRIMSON TIDE (the main operating company will be re-namedCrimson Tide MPro) Crimson Tide, founded in 1996 and based in Tunbridge Wells, is a growing mobiledata solutions provider building on its established expertise in customerrelationship management ("CRM") systems, telecoms software and bespoke softwaredevelopment, to provide companies in the small and medium sized enterprisessector with the ability to access their business information whilst away fromthe office. THE MARKET The market for mobile e-mail access is expanding rapidly with Palm forecasting a10-fold increase in worldwide, mobile e-mail users by 2008 and Microsoft sayingthat it believes that mobility is set to grow by over 30 per cent per annum to2007. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES Crimson Tide's mobileprofessional services are based on the use of handhelddevices to provide a range of remote data services and software solutions on asubscription basis including: • Remote e-mail management; • Electronic forms; • Corporate CRM systems with remote access for management and employees; and • Remote access to company data and management information integrated with back-end systems hosted by the customer or by Crimson Tide. Crimson Tide offers these services on a monthly subscription model allowing thecustomer to acquire IT functionality without incurring the capital expenditureusually associated with these types of business solutions. In addition to the above, Crimson Tide continues to offer its traditionalbusiness solutions including CRM software, bespoke software and to supply itsown telecoms management software. It also continues to generate on-goingrevenues by supporting software solutions that it has previously supplied to itsexisting customers. KEY COMMERCIAL RELATIONSHIPS Crimson Tide is: • A Sage business partner and one of Sage's top mobile solutions business partners; • A Palm certified partner; and • A Good Technology business partner. These relationships allow the company to offer integrated solutions using itspartners' technology and obtain discounts on its partners' products. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange