Placing and Trading Update

12 Nov 2007 12:52

Tasty PLC12 November 2007 Tasty Plc ("Tasty" or the "Company") Placing and Trading Update The Company is pleased to announce a placing to raise £2.2 million and an updateon trading. The Placing The Company announces today that it intends to raise up to £2.2million, beforeexpenses, through a placing of 2,430,775 new ordinary shares of 10 pence each("New Shares") at a price of 90 pence per share (the "Placing Price") ("thePlacing"). The Placing Price represents a discount of 11 per cent. to theclosing middle market price of the Company on 9 November 2007 (being the latestpracticable date prior to this announcement). The New Shares will representapproximately 8.5 per cent. of the current issued share capital of the Company.The Placing is conditional upon admission of the New Shares to trading on AIMand is not underwritten. The net proceeds from the Placing will be used by the Company to fund thecontinued expansion of restaurants within the Company. The Company has been informed that Samuel Kaye, an Executive Director, and AdamKaye, a Non-Executive Director, each purchased 111,111 New Shares in thePlacing. Following this purchase, Samuel Kaye and Adam Kaye have a holding of6,518,874 ordinary shares each, with each holding representing 20.9 per cent. ofthe Company's enlarged issued ordinary share capital. Application will be made for the New Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM anddealings are expected to commence on 19 November 2007. Trading Update The Company announced its interim results on 28 September 2007 at which time theBoard indicated that it had eight restaurants with all locations performing inline with expectations, save for Nottingham. Since this date the Board hasclosed the Nottingham restaurant which will lead to an exceptional write off andclosing cost during the current financial year. The Company has also refurbishedsome of its existing restaurants which will be expensed during the current year.The remaining seven restaurants continue to perform in line with managementexpectations. The expansion plans of the Company continue to be in line with expectations witha further two restaurants expected to be operational before the year end and therecently opened central kitchen in Park Royal providing capacity forconsiderable expansion. The Board has also identified a number of otherlocations in order to continue the roll out of restaurants in 2008. The Board has continued to strengthen its operations following the interimresults. As announced at the time of the results Jo Fleet has joined the Companyas an Executive Director with further finance and managerial appointments alsohaving been made. These appointments will increase the costs of the Companyduring the remaining months of this year and 2008, but will provide theappropriate infrastructure for growth. The Board also believes theseappointments will assist the Company's roll out of restaurants and benefit theperformance of the existing locations. 12 November 2007 Enquiries: Tasty plc 020 7637 1166Jonny Plant Evolution Securities 020 7071 4300Tom PriceBobbie HilliamFergus Marcroft This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange