Statement re Placing, re-admission and commence...
Coms plc
(re-named from Azman PLC)
Placing and Admission to AIM
Coms plc ("Coms" or "the Company") announces today the first day of trading of
its Ordinary Shares on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange ("AIM"). The
Company's new TIDM is COMS.
Admission to trading follows a reverse takeover of Azman PLC and a Placing of
the Company's Ordinary Shares, which raised £1.22 million before expenses, at
the Placing Price of 1 pence per share. As at 31 January 2006, Azman PLC had a
cash balance of £0.45 million. The market capitalisation of Coms at the Placing
Price will be approximately £7.93 million when the shares commence trading this
morning. ARM Corporate Finance Limited is acting as Nominated Adviser and Falcon
Securities (UK) Limited is Broker to the Company.
The Company
The Company has been established to launch a Voice over Internet Protocol
("VoIP") and unified messaging service. It is the intention to establish by
organic growth and by acquisition a group which has the potential for generating
significant, sustainable growth and profitability in the telecommunications
industry.
Coms has been generally authorised as a Public Electronic Communication Network
by Ofcom. Ofcom has allocated Coms 1.4 million numbers in the top 178 UK
geographic area codes by population which Coms principally intends to use for
VoIP services.
The Company has appointed a board with substantial experience in management of
both start-up and large companies, providing the background capability to manage
the growth of Coms.
"The emergence of Internet telephony is revolutionising the telecoms industry,
creating major opportunities for an innovative telecoms company such as Coms"
commented Jason Drummond, Executive Chairman of Coms, "Our ongoing investment in
our own proprietary technology, coupled with, an exceptionally experienced
senior management team will, I believe, deliver substantial results. Our team
includes Terry Martin, previously sales director of Apple Computers (UK)
Limited, and Richard Bennett, a co-founder of JFAX/J2 Inc, the leading unified
messaging telecoms service. Terry and Richard will lead and implement our
customer acquisition and corporate development strategies".
The Market Opportunity
The Directors believe that VoIP is changing the way consumers and businesses
make and receive their telephone calls - offering a low-cost service that can be
combined with services provided by broadboard Internet suppliers. The many
innovative features of such an emerging technology, which include location
independence and lower cost calls, will encourage a rapid migration of customers
away from the traditional PSTN systems. The Company, unlike Skype™ for example,
has adopted standards based open architectures that the Directors believe will
provide for higher standards of service and compliance with emerging
technologies.
Strategy
The Company intends to capitalise on the evolving VoIP market by implementing
direct, channel and wholesale customer acquisition programmes. The Directors
believe that the Coms's proposition, which includes free internet calls between
Coms's subscribers, will encourage subscribers to introduce their contacts to
the service. This method of customer acquisition is widely known as viral
marketing and should lead to rapid subscriber growth.
Placing Statistics
Placing Price 1p
Existing Shares 121,750,000
Number of Placing Shares being issued 122,128,200
Percentage of the Enlarged Share Capital
represented by the Placing Shares at Admission 15.4%
Consideration Shares 550,000,000
Number of Ordinary Shares in issue at Admission 793,878,200
Gross proceeds of the Placing £1,221,282
Market Capitalisation at the Placing Price £7,938,782
Directors' and Other Interests
Director Number of Ordinary Percentage of Issued
Shares Held Ordinary Shares
Jason Drummond 482,745,700 60.8%
Jonathan Cole 86,951,100 11.0%
Justin Drummond 29,931,400 3.8%
Terry Martin 2,500,000 0.3%
Richard Bennett 2,500,000 0.3%
Andrew Branson 500,000 0.1%
Other Interests
Riverrock Limited 50,000,000 6.3%
Cantor Fitzgerald Europe 24,000,000 3.0%
Leo Knifton* 16,666,667 2.1%
*Mr. Knifton also has an interest in 15,000,000 Ordinary Shares, comprising 1.9%
of the Issued Ordinary Shares, held in the name of Cantor Fitzgerald Europe
Date: 6th September 2006
For further information, please contact:
Coms plc tel: +44 207 959 2113
Terry Martin, Chief Executive Officer
Richard Bennett, Corporate Development Director
Jason Drummond, Chairman
Holborn PR tel: +44 207 929 5599
Trevor Phillips
Mark Longson