9 Oct 2013 07:00
9 October 2013
blur (Group) plc
("blur," the "Group" or the "Company")
Proposed directors' dealings
blur (Group) Plc (BLUR), the technology company that's reinventing commerce at blurgroup.com, announces that two directors of the business are planning to sell a total of 995,000 existing ordinary shares of 1p each in the Company via an accelerated bookbuild through N+1 Singer. The accelerated bookbuild is to existing institutions as well as providing the opportunity to add new institutions to the Company's shareholder register.
Philip Letts (CEO) is planning to sell 900,000 existing ordinary shares and Richard Bourne-Arton (Non-Executive Director) is planning to sell 95,000 existing ordinary shares.
The principal purpose of the sale is to increase institutional liquidity while also allowing Mr. Letts to rebalance his portfolio and utilise entrepreneur's relief. Mr. Letts did not sell any shares at the IPO and this will be the first time he has sold any shares since he founded blur over seven years ago. N+1 Singer has confirmed the release of Mr. Letts from his IPO lock-up in respect of his proposed sale.
Following his proposed sale, Mr. Letts will have a beneficial interest in 14,100,000 ordinary shares, representing 47.58% of the Company's issued ordinary share capital.
Following his proposed sale, Mr. Bourne-Arton will have a beneficial interest in 379,975 ordinary shares, representing 1.28% of the Company's issued ordinary share capital.
The balance of Mr. Letts' shareholding remains subject to a lock-up agreement put in place at the time of the Company's IPO in October 2012 between himself and the Company's Nomad, N+1 Singer. The lock-up remains in force until 5 October 2015 and Mr. Letts does not intend on selling any more shares for the forseeable future.
Philip Letts, CEO blur Group, commented: "I have been running blur for seven and a half years and not sold any shares to date. This is a great opportunity for the Company to benefit from increased long term institutional support and greater liquidity as well as for me to capitalise personally to a limited extent on some of the value created. As always, I am committed to the Company for the long term and look forward with confidence to building a global tech company of significant scale for the benefit of all stakeholders and shareholders alike."
For further information please contact:
blur (Group) plc | Tel: +44 20 3176 0548 |
Philip Letts - CEO | |
James Davis - Group CFO | |
Lucy Davies - Head of PR | lucy@blurgroup.com |
N+1 Singer (Nomad and Joint Broker) | Tel: +44 20 7496 3000 |
Shaun Dobson / Matt Thomas | |
Panmure Gordon (Joint Broker) | Tel: +44 20 7886 2500 |
Dominic Morley / Charles Leigh-Pemberton | |
Newgate Threadneedle | Tel: +44 20 7653 9850 |
Caroline Evans-Jones / Josh Royston/ Hilary Millar | |
Yellow Jersey | Tel: +44 7768 534641 |
Philip Ranger / Anna Legge |
About blur (Group) plc at blurgroup.com
blur Group is a technology company reinventing how businesses do commerce at blurgroup.com. Its Global Services Exchange delivers services differently: a new way to buy, manage and pay for core services. Approaching 35,000 business users in 141 countries have adopted this s-commerce platform and changed the way they work.
blur Group (BLUR) is a public company headquartered in the UK with offices in the US and Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market. blur was founded in January 2006 and launched in alpha in 2007 with the full, formal launch of the Global Services Exchange in January 2010. At that time, just over three project briefs per month were submitted. Now 200 projects per month from companies like Broadridge, Coral, Exceed, HCA, Momentive, Red Commerce, the Financial Times, Berlitz, Butlins, GE Healthcare and Tyco are received. Over the same time, average project value has grown from approximately $1,500 in 2010 to $28,800 in Q3 2013.
Today, more than 2,800 projects have been submitted with a combined value of over $53 million. These have come from the US, UK, Europe, Africa and Asia with over 31,000 expert service providers on eight exchanges responding to them.