£3 Million Contract Won From BAT

Parity Group PLC
1 November 1999



         PARITY WINS £3 MILLION APPLICATION MANAGEMENT CONTRACT FROM BAT
                                
Parity Solutions, part of Parity Group plc, the international IT consultancy
group, has been appointed by British American Tobacco ('BAT') to carry out a
major application management programme for its European operations.  The award
of the contract, worth approximately £3 million over three years, follows a
strategic review by BAT, after which the company decided to outsource the
support of several key applications.

The project was won in competitive tender and Parity will continue working with
some of BAT's current applications support team.  The applications have been
moved to BAT's European Data Centre in Hamburg and the application management
services will be run from Parity's Farnborough offices.

The contract covers the support of production control, database administration
and data warehousing applications.  These services are in addition to the work
already carried out by Parity Solutions for BAT in consultancy, systems
analysis, design and build services under an earlier framework agreement.

Commenting on the award, Richard Cammish, Head of UK IT at BAT said:

'Parity has a proven track record at BAT, having already completed a number of
successful consultancy and software development projects.  Our relationship
with Parity has enabled us to provide continuity of service for users of the
current systems, as well as strong teamwork between IT and the business units.
Parity also fulfils our criteria for a support and development partner.'

Parity Director, Keith Jennings, said,

'We are delighted to have won this important contract with BAT, with whom we
have had a successful working relationship since 1996.  Our extensive
experience in supporting applications across a wide range of platforms and
methodologies gives us the capability to support these applications for BAT.'

                              
Further information:
Richard Hawthorn, Sales and Marketing Director, Parity Solutions Ltd.
Tel: [phone]
Michael Harrington, Group Communications Director,
Tel: [phone]