Preliminary Results

On-Line PLC
30 October 2000


Record Profits For On-line PLC

Preliminary Results for the Year Ended 30 June 2000


New technology business builder On-line PLC today announces preliminary
results for the year 
ending 30 June 2000.
       
Highlights: 

-       Record profits of £2.58M against loss of £182K for 1999

-       Earnings per share of 55.4p compared to loss per share of 5.1p for
        1999

-       Net assets at year-end increased from £834K to £5.32M

-       Cash at bank increased from £762K to £4.16M

-       Successfully floated ADVFN.com Plc onto AIM.


The company, established in l989 and floated in 1996, builds technology
businesses to a critical mass, and then brings them to market. Once they have
floated, On-line monetises its investments and, over time, releases their
value. The company's present portfolio of businesses includes: AAA Game - a
games company; AdvertWizard - an advertising platform; Avantnoise - an 
Internet music business; and 9to5Cafe - an entertainment website.

Chairman of On-line Plc Michael Hodges commented as follows:
       
'Our solid experience as Internet pioneers has allowed us to build a number of
new-tech ventures of which the first, ADVFN.com Plc has been a notable
success. We've retained almost 76% of the company, currently valued at more
than our total market cap. It is well on its way to becoming one of the
biggest Internet brands in Europe.

We are proud that we were one of the first Internet companies to float in the
UK and are now one of the first to show that the net can, and will, deliver
returns. Our business strategy has been validated by ADVFN - and I hope it
will help to remove the cloud of despondency which has formed around the
Internet in the eyes of the investment community.

We have a winning team at On-line, and a winning strategy. The success of
ADVFN has given us a blue-print which we intend to use for our other
businesses.'


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

On-line Plc
Michael Hodges Chairman       020 8591 1125 

Fleet Financial Communications Limited 
Hugo de Salis                 020 7601 1066



Chairman's statement

Results 
 
In March of this year in our interims, I stated that 'the prospects for
On-line PLC (On-line) were very exciting.' We have delivered on those
prospects by successfully floating ADVFN.COM PLC (ADVFN) which has helped us
to report a £2,576,000 profit for the year which is 55.4p earnings per share.
We are very proud of this result and are working to make this a solid
foundation for future progress. 

Business Model 

As original pioneers in the Internet space, we are happy to be one of the
first to keep the promise that 'the net' can deliver returns. We have done
this in the only way we know that works on the Internet; we have planned,
executed and responded to this exciting but volatile market, adapting our
business to the opportunities as they develop. We have leveraged our
experience as first movers to create a pipeline of new-tech ventures. The
first of which, ADVFN (http//:www.advfn.com), has been a solid success. More
are planned and I shall deal with these in a moment.

We feel that currently the market does not understand our business model and
perhaps our profit may suggest that this is because it is somewhat unique. The
idea is to build technology businesses, get them to a critical mass then 
bring them to market. Once floated we will monetise our investments and over
time release their value. Once this model is understood we believe that a
different valuation criteria will be applied to the group. The best way to 
explain this model in detail is to look at ADVFN.

We built ADVFN during 1999, launched it in December 1999 and went on to
successfully bring it to the market in March 2000 with a valuation of £25m.
On-line still owns almost 76%, currently worth more, at the time of writing, 
than the total current market cap of On-line.

ADVFN.COM has gone on to become one of the most important financial websites
in the UK with page impressions exceeding 1.5 million a day. ADVFN has a
dynamic management team and we believe it can go on to become one 
of the biggest Internet brands in Europe. We believe this success is due to
our methodology and contains a blueprint for On-line (http//:
www.on-line.co.uk). With new technology businesses core to this plan we have
created a pipeline of product to deliver on that strategy.

Development Pipeline. 

The high-tech world is an extremely fast and competitive environment. By
floating businesses at an early stage, we can attract the best talent to run
that business and offer investors an opportunity with the possibility of
significant upside potential. It also gives the business both the funding and
autonomy that the 'new economy' paradigm requires.  

Our present portfolio of developing businesses includes:

AAA Game (http//: www.aaagame.com)
Computer gaming is close to our hearts, working as we have for the last 10
years in this market. We have made major strides in this business this year,
since Rod Cobain, an industry veteran joined us in 1999. AAA Game has now a
large range of products ready to release, the first of these will be Deer
Avenger and the PC version of the Award winning Tread Marks which will be
ready for Playstation 2 by the middle of next year.

To add to this new strength, the industry as a whole is about to enter a new
phase with the imminent launch of Sony's Playstation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox.
Of all our businesses, AAA Game is likely to be floated the soonest, as 
we feel it has reached the critical mass position we look for to start the
process of spinning out a business.

AdvertWizard (http//:www.advertwizard.com)
AdvertWizard is an Internet advertising platform that makes online advertising
easy, instant and effective for businesses of any size, anywhere. Its fully
automated system enables anyone to earn cash and free advertising from 
their sites. It allows advertisers instant buys on targeted campaigns through
complete automation of set up and reporting. All sites, banners and campaigns
are managed online through an individual account, with instant results 
and real-time reports.
Chairman's statement

AdvertWizard is primed to go live this winter and we have high hopes that it
can become an established platform in the Internet advertising world. Although
advertising on the Internet has never been acclaimed with the same excitement
as buying books, auctions or stock-broking, we consider it inconceivable that
advertising on-line will not become a multi-billion dollar industry. At such
an early stage, we believe we can lay claim to an interesting share of that
market, with an easy to use, fully automated system that brings together
content owners with advertisers.

As with all our developments, we encourage you to check out our work and tell
us what you think.

Avantnoise (http//:www.avantnoise.com)
It is generally accepted that the Internet has the potential to completely
reshape the music industry. We are building a digital platform to take the
current music business paradigm and turn it upside down. This of course is a
broad claim, as it was when we set out to make ADVFN a leading investment site
from nothing. If we can deliver on it then we will reap the benefit of a
seismic shift in a multi-billion dollar industry.

We are creating a new worldwide internet-based open forum for musicians of any
style or genre, enabling them to set up their own homepage and upload digital
music for customers to download at a cost determined by the artist. In this
way, artists can gain an instant global presence, communicate directly with
their fans, and generate income from their music without retailers,
distributors and manufacturers taking a share. We aim to be the 'ethical'
music website which offers openness, control and freedom to its artists, and a
whole world of new exciting music of all varieties to its customers.

As the platform for these transactions, Avantnoise shares in the revenue.  It
also reaps the advertising traffic generated by this important advertiser
demographic. The Avantnoise platform will go into live beta testing around 
the end of the year.

9to5Cafe (http//:www.9to5cafe.com)
A large part of the Internet market sits at a desk all day, on a high-speed
office connection, within a few feet of a corporate chequebook that spends
lots of money every month. This is a market we want to address. We have chosen
to try and capture it with the most compelling offer you can make any office
worker. 'Come to our site and spend 10 minutes having fun.' Although still in
early stages of development, 9to5cafe.com has more than 1m page impressions a
month and this is growing organically. We believe that more and more people
will have the web on their desktop and that the opportunity in English
speaking countries alone is very attractive. We also believe we can 
offer this market both fun and increased productivity, which will bring the
site a significant and valuable audience. To conclude 9to5cafe has got a lot
bigger, a lot faster than we expected and we have high hopes for it.

Prospects 
 
It is our intention to use the blueprint we have created for ADVFN for other
business we are building. We believe this plan will dramatically increase
shareholder value. It is also a blueprint to acquire and retain the best
people then empower them with the focus and autonomy. It is also a way of
gearing On-line's internal skills which have been built up as both Internet
pioneers and entrepreneurs.As such we are once again excited with the prospect
of the coming year. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our staff
for their superb input, which has helped build this success and thank our
shareholders for supporting us.


Michael Hodges
Chairman


Consolidated Profit and Loss Account
for the year ended 30 June 2000
                                                      2000              1999
                                  Notes              £'000             £'000

Turnover                                               748             1,008

Cost of sales                                          (86)              (30)
                     
Gross profit                                           662               978

Administrative expenses                             (1,557)           (1,165)

Operating loss                                        (895)             (187)
       
Exceptional item: profit on part disposal 
of subsidiary                                 2      3,402                 -

Net interest                                            69                 5

Profit/(loss) on ordinary activities 
before taxation                                      2,576              (182)

Tax on profit/(loss) on ordinary activities             (2)                -

Profit/(loss) on ordinary activities 
after taxation                                       2,574              (182)

Minority interest                                        2                 -

Profit retained/(loss sustained) for the year        2,576              (182)

Earnings/(loss) per ordinary share            3
Basic                                                55.4p              (5.1p)
Diluted                                              55.1p              (5.1p)


There were no recognised gains or losses other than the profit or loss for the
financial year.


Balance Sheets
at 30 June 2000

                     Notes       Group       Group       Company     Company
                                  2000        1999        2000        1999
                                 £'000       £'000       £'000       £'000
Fixed Assets
Intangible assets                2,129           -         235           -
Tangible assets                    269         139         260          20
Investments                        482          26       1,887       1,430
                                 2,880         165       2,382       1,450

Current Assets
Stocks                              42          12          42           -
Debtors              
 Due in more than one year           -           -           -         500
 Due in less than one year         266         247         537         233
Cash at bank and in hand         4,156         762         866         711
                                 4,464       1,021       1,445       1,444

Creditors: amounts falling 
due within one year               (933)       (300)       (348)       (159)

Net current assets               3,531         721       1,097       1,285

Total assets less current 
liabilities                      6,411         886       3,479       2,735

Creditors: amounts falling due 
after more than one year          (63)         (52)        (63)          -

Provision for liabilities and charges
Minority interests             (1,030)            -          -           -

Net assets                      5,318           834      3,416       2,735

Capital and Reserves
Called up share capital         2,603         1,987      2,603       1,987
Share premium account           1,591           657      1,591         657
Profit and loss account         1,124        (1,810)      (778)         91

Shareholders' funds     4       5,318           834      3,416       2,735


The financial statements were approved by the Board of Directors on 27 October
2000


Consolidated Cash Flow Statement
for the year ended 30 June 2000

                                                 2000              1999
                                    Notes       £'000              £'000

Net cash (outflow)/inflow from
operating activities                    5         (85)               298

Returns on investment and
servicing of finance
Interest received                                  87                 13
Interest paid                                     (18)                (8)
                                                   69                  5

Capital expenditure
Sale of tangible fixed assets                      16                  -
Payments to acquire intangible fixed assets    (1,934)               (369)
Payments to acquire tangible fixed assets        (223)               (128)
Payment to acquire investments                   (450)                (32)
                                               (2,591)               (529)

Acquisitions and disposals
Purchase of subsidiary undertaking               (350)                  -
Part disposal of subsidiary                     4,792                   -
                                                4,442                   -

Net cash inflow/(outflow) before financing      1,835                (226)

Financing                     
Issue of ordinary share capital                 1,550                 906
Capital element of new finance leases and
  hire purchase contracts                          65                 103
Capital element of finance leases and hire
  purchase contracts repaid                       (69)                (35)    
         
Net cash inflow from financing                  1,546                 974

Increase in cash                         6      3,381                 748



Notes for the year ended 30 June 1999 

1.       Basis of preparation

The financial information herein does not constitute statutory accounts as
defined in section 240 of the Companies Act 1985. The financial information
has been extracted from the group's 2000 statutory financial statements upon 
which the auditors opinion is unqualified and does not include any statement
under section 237 of the Companies Act 1985. The accounts have been prepared
in accordance with applicable accounting standards and under the historical
cost convention. The principal accounting policies of the group have remained
unchanged from the previous annual report.
 
Copies of the annual report are being posted to shareholders and copies will
be available from the company's registered office at Crown House, Linton Road,
Barking, Essex, IG11  8HJ.


2.       Exceptional item: profit on part disposal of subsidiary

                                                    2000        1999
                                                   £'000       £'000

Consolidation adjustment arising as a result 
of the part disposal   of ADVFN                    3,760           -
Less: goodwill previously written off to reserves   (358)          - 
                                                   3,402           -

The reduction in the group's effective interest, as a result of the flotation
of ADVFN, is a deemed disposal within the meaning of FRS2 and gives rise to
the consolidation adjustment as follows: 

                                                    Group       Minority
                                     Cashflow       share       interest      
                                        £'000       £'000       £'000

Net assets of ADVFN following disposal  4,272       3,240       1,032
Net liabilities of ADVFN before 
disposal                                  520         520           -
Minority share of post disposal losses      -           -          (2)
                                        4,792       3,760       1,030

There was no taxation charge or credit applicable to the exceptional item
shown above.


3.       Earnings/(loss) per ordinary share
                                        2000                            1999
                             Number    Earnings           Number        Loss
                    Profit   shares   per share    Loss   shares   per share
                     £'000     '000               £'000     '000

Earnings/(loss) for 
the year             2,576                        (182)
Weighted average 
number of shares              4,648                        3,558
Basic earnings/(loss) 
per share                              55.4p                           (5.1p)

Number of shares under 
option atless than average 
share price during the 
year of 359p (1999:83p)          53                     
       
Number of shares that 
would have been issued 
at fair value                   (30)              

Diluted earnings/(loss) 
per share            2,576    4,671     55.1p     (182)     3,558       (5.1p)

In 1999 there was no dilutive effect.
Notes for the year ended 30 June 1999


4.       Reconciliation of movements in shareholders' funds
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                      
                                                        Group      Group
                                                         2000       1999
                                                        £'000       £'000

Profit/(loss) for the financial year                    2,576       (182)
Receipts from issue of shares                           1,550        906
Goodwill previously written off to reserves               358          -
Net increase in shareholders funds in the year          4,484        724
Shareholders' funds at 1 July                             834        110
Shareholders' funds at 30 June                          5,318        834
 

5.       Reconciliation of operating loss to net cash (outflow)/inflow from
operating activities

                                                         2000        1999
                                                        £'000       £'000

Operating loss                                           (895)       (187)
Amortisation                                              151         436
Depreciation                                               96          53
Provision against investment                               (6)          6
Profit on sale of tangible fixed assets                   (10)          -
Increase in stocks                                        (30)        (12)
Increase in debtors                                        (9)        (34)
Increase in creditors                                      618         36
Net cash (outflow)/inflow from operating activities        (85)       298


6.       Reconciliation of net cash flow to movement in net funds

                                                          2000       1999
                                                          £'000     £'000

Increase in cash for the year                           3,381         748
Cash acquired on acquisition of subsidiary                 13           -
New finance leases and hire purchase agreements           (65)       (103)
Cash outflow from capital repayments of hire purchase and 
Finance lease agreements                                   69          35
Movement in net funds in the year                       3,398         680

Net funds/(debt) at 1 July                                660         (20)
Net funds at 30 June                                    4,058         660


7.       Analysis of net funds
                                                         2000        1999
                                                        £'000       £'000

Cash at bank                                            4,156         762
Finance lease and hire purchase agreements                (98)       (102)
Total                                                   4,058         660