Director/PDMR Shareholding

RNS Number : 3868V

Avacta Group PLC

30 January 2017

 

30 January 2017

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or "the Group" or "the Company")

Director/PDMR Shareholding

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and research reagents, announces the following changes to the equity incentives of its Chief Executive Officer, Alastair Smith and its Chief Financial Officer, Tony Gardiner.

The two Directors have waived their right to participate in the annual performance bonus awards in respect of the year ended 31 July 2017 and have instead been granted share options under the Avacta Group plc Executive Share Option Scheme.

The number of options which have been granted at 72.5p are as follows:

·      Alastair Smith - 520,550 options over Ordinary Shares

·      Tony Gardiner - 306,000 options over Ordinary Shares

They will vest on the third anniversary of the grant at a level of 50% if the share price is in excess of £2.00 or at a level of 100% if the share price is in excess of £2.50 based on a 30-day average of the closing mid-market share price.

Trevor Nicholls, Avacta Group Chairman and Chairman of the Remuneration Committee said:

"As we stated in our Trading Update on 20 January the Company has made substantial progress with its Affimer technology, but that has not yet been reflected in the share price. The Board unanimously felt that it is right to strongly align the executives' rewards with those of shareholders. Therefore, the executive directors have waived their involvement in the annual performance bonus awards in favour of longer term equity driven value. This reflects the confidence we have in the future value of the Affimer technology and the team's commitment to delivering it to shareholders."

Enquiries:

Avacta Group plc Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial Officer	Tel:  [phone] www.avacta.com
finnCap Ltd Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls - Nominated Adviser Tim Redfern / Alice Lane - Corporate Broking WG Partners David Wilson Nigel Barnes Claes Spang	Tel:  [phone] www.finncap.com Tel:  [phone] Tel:  [phone] www.wgpartners.co.uk
Media Enquiries FTI Consulting Simon Conway / Natalie Garland-Collins	Tel: [phone] [e-mail]

Notes to Editors

Avacta Group plc (www.avacta.com)

Avacta's principal focus is on its proprietary Affimer^® technology which is a novel engineered alternative to antibodies that has wide application in Life Sciences for diagnostics, therapeutics and general research and development.

Antibodies dominate markets worth in excess of $50bn despite their shortcomings. Affimer technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally; the time taken to generate new antibodies, the reliance on an animal's immune response, poor specificity in many cases, and batch to batch variability. Affimer technology is based on a small protein that can be quickly generated to bind with high specificity and affinity to a wide range of protein targets.

Avacta has a pre-clinical biotech development programme with an in-house focus on immuno-oncology and bleeding disorders as well as partnered development programmes. Avacta is commercialising non-therapeutic Affimer reagents through licensing to developers of life sciences research tools and diagnostics.

The information communicated in this announcement is inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation 596/2014.

Notification and public disclosure of transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibilities and persons closely associated with them

1.	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Alastair Smith
2.	Reason for the Notification
a)	Position/status	Chief Executive Officer
b)	Initial notification/Amendment	Initial notification
3.	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Avacta Group Plc
b)	LEI	n/a
4.	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the Financial instrument, type of instrument	Ordinary shares of 10p
	Identification code	GB00BYYW9G87
b)	Nature of the transaction	Grant of share options under the Avacta Group plc Executive Share Option Scheme as follows: 520,550 options over Ordinary shares of 10p each The share options will vest: - 50% if the share price on the third anniversary of the grant is in excess of £2 per share; - 50% if the share price on the third anniversary of the grant is in excess of £2.50 per share and are exercisable upon payment of 72.5p per share.
c)	Price(s) and volume(s)	Price(s) Volume(s) 72.5 pence 520,550
d)	Aggregated information: ·      Aggregated volume ·      Price	See above
e)	Date of the transaction	27 January 2017
f)	Place of the transaction	Outside a trading venue

1.	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Tony Gardiner
2.	Reason for the Notification
a)	Position/status	Chief Financial Officer
b)	Initial notification/Amendment	Initial notification
3.	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Avacta Group Plc
b)	LEI	n/a
4.	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the Financial instrument, type of instrument	Ordinary shares of 10p
	Identification code	GB00BYYW9G87
b)	Nature of the transaction	Grant of share options under the Avacta Group plc Executive Share Option Scheme as follows: 306,000 options over Ordinary shares of 10p each The share options will vest: - 50% if the share price on the third anniversary of the grant is in excess of £2 per share; - 50% if the share price on the third anniversary of the grant is in excess of £2.50 per share and are exercisable upon payment of 72.5p per share.
c)	Price(s) and volume(s)	Price(s) Volume(s) 72.5 pence 306,000
d)	Aggregated information: ·      Aggregated volume ·      Price	See above
e)	Date of the transaction	27 January 2017
f)	Place of the transaction	Outside a trading venue

 

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