Directors' Dealings and Issue of Equity

RNS Number : 2584P

Avacta Group PLC

17 February 2016

 

17 February 2016

Avacta Group plc

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

Directors' Dealings and Issue of Equity

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, together with the issue of 905,031 Ordinary Shares of 10p ("new Ordinary Shares") to Avacta Group Trustee Limited.

Alastair Smith

On 15 February 2016, Dr Smith, was granted options over 128,764 Ordinary Shares pursuant to the Avacta Group Enterprise Management Incentive ("EMI") Scheme. The option exercise price is 118.5p per share and the options vest as follows:

-     32,191 options over Ordinary Shares vest on 15 February 2017

-     32,191 options over Ordinary Shares vest on 15 February 2018

-     32,191 options over Ordinary Shares vest on 15 February 2019

-     32,191 options over Ordinary Shares vest on 15 February 2020

Dr Smith already held options over 141,176 Ordinary Shares granted under the EMI scheme on 9 January 2012 at an exercise price of 50p per share which are fully vested.

In addition, on 15 February 2016, Dr Smith purchased an interest in 495,851 Ordinary Shares at a price of 1% of the 118.5p per share, in accordance with the terms of the Avacta Joint Share Ownership Plan (the "Joint Share Ownership Plan") established on 9 January 2012. This interest is joint with Avacta Group Trustee Limited as trustee for the Avacta Group Employee's Share Trust under the Joint Share Ownership Plan. Following this purchase, Dr Smith has an interest in 2,177,282 Ordinary shares, representing approximately 3.2% of the Group's issued share capital.

Tony Gardiner

On 15 February 2016, Mr Gardiner, was granted options over 210,968 Ordinary Shares pursuant to the Avacta Group Enterprise Management Incentive ("EMI") Scheme. The option exercise price is 118.5p per share and the options vest as follows:

-     52,742 options over Ordinary Shares vest on 15 February 2017

-     52,742 options over Ordinary Shares vest on 15 February 2018

-     52,742 options over Ordinary Shares vest on 15 February 2019

-     52,742 options over Ordinary Shares vest on 15 February 2020

In addition, on 15 February 2016, Mr Gardiner purchased an interest in 150,000 Ordinary Shares at a price of 1% of the 118.5p per share, in accordance with the terms of the Avacta Joint Share Ownership Plan (the "Joint Share Ownership Plan") established on 9 January 2012. This interest is joint with Avacta Group Trustee Limited as trustee for the Avacta Group Employee's Share Trust under the Joint Share Ownership Plan. Following this purchase, Mr Gardiner has an interest in 150,000 Ordinary shares, representing approximately 0.2% of the Group's issued share capital.

Issue of Equity

In order to complete the arrangements under the Joint Share Ownership Plan for Dr Smith, Mr Gardiner and other eligible employees, the Group today announces that 905,031 Ordinary Shares of 10p ("new Ordinary Shares") have been issued by the Company.

Application has been made for the new Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and dealings are expected to commence on 22 February 2016. The total number of Ordinary Shares in issue following the above issue will be 68,367,990 each with voting rights.  No Ordinary Shares are held in Treasury.

The above figure of 68,367,990 shares may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in the Company under the FSA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

Enquiries:

Avacta Group plc Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial Officer	Tel:  [phone] www.avacta.com
Numis Securities Limited     Michael Meade / Freddie Barnfield - Nominated Adviser James Black - Corporate Broking WG Partners David Wilson Nigel Barnes Claes Spang	Tel:  [phone] www.numiscorp.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 oncology and bleeding disorders as well as several partnered development programmes. Avacta is commercialising Affimer reagents through custom Affimer services to provide bespoke solutions to customers and via a growing on-line catalogue of Affimer reagents.

 

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