Holding in Company

Allen PLC
20 February 2001


LETTER TO  Allen Plc
DATED: 19 February 2001 

5p ORDINARY SHARES ('SHARES')

We write to advise you that we, Schroder Investment Management Limited, have an
interest in 6,714,360 shares which are held in portfolios managed by us on a
discretionary basis for clients under investment management agreements.

Included in this figure are:

(i)  5,327,360 shares held in (a) unit trust(s) operated and managed by
     another wholly-owned subsidiary, Schroder Unit Trusts Limited (SUTL), and
     registered or to be registered in the name of Chase Nominees Limited
     and

(ii) 1,387,000 shares neither registered nor to be registered in the name of
     Schroder Nominees. The registration details are shown on the
     schedule below.

Another wholly-owned subsidiary, Schroder Investment Management North America
Limited (SIMNA Ltd), is managing on a discretionary basis (a) portfolio(s)
holding a further 180,500 shares, while an affiliated company, Schroder
Investment Management North America Inc (SIMNA Inc), is managing (a)
portfolio(s) on a similar basis holding a further 63,800 shares. These shares
are registered or to be registered in the name of Chase Nominees Limited.

Another affiliated company, Schroder Hermes, is managing 51,417 shares in (a)
portfolio(s) on a passive (index tracker) basis for clients under investment
management agreements. These shares are registered or to be registered in the
name of Chase Nominees Limited.

We believe that we and our subsidiary and affiliated companies are therefore
interested in an overall aggregate of 7,010,077 shares, representing some
16.877% of the total number of shares in issue, namely 41,535,835 shares.

This notification is made to you:

(a) in respect of our interest as investment managers and also by virtue of the
    fact that we are the parent company of SUTL,

(b) on behalf of Schroder Hermes, SIMNA Inc, SIMNA Limited and SUTL in relation 
    to the interests they are treated as having respectively under the Companies
    Act 1985 (the Act), and

(c) on behalf of Schroders plc., our holding company, which is treated as
    having an interest in all of the above shares under the Act by virtue of
    its ownership of Schroder Hermes, SIMNA Inc and ourselves.


LETTER FROM  ALISON DUNN, COMPLIANCE REPORTING ASSISTANT
        
                                           

                                  ALLEN PLC

                                  SCHEDULE
                           
                              5p ORDINARY SHARES


REGISTRATION                                            AMOUNT

Imperial Pensions Nominees Limited                     800,000
Nutraco Nominees Ltd                                   162,000
BT Globenet Nominees Ltd. a/c: 6B                      425,000

Total                                                1,387,000