Artisan (UK) PLC
17 September 2002
For immediate release
17 September 2002
Artisan (UK) plc
('Artisan' or the 'Company')
AGM Chairman's Statement
On the occasion of Artisan's fourth AGM, it gives me great pleasure to be making
my first statement as your Company's Chairman. Your Board's goals, simply put,
are the following:
• To reverse the deterioration in the Market Value of the Company
• To increase profits and earnings per share
• To improve the quality of assets
• To build a substantial international property development business
We believe that the impending transaction involving the acquisition of a partly
pre-let development opportunity for approx 45,000 m2 of offices in France, is a
positive step forward.
At this juncture I would like to take the opportunity to give you a little bit
of background on myself. I have spent 20 years in property and in particular
property development on an international basis. The great majority of the
developments I have been involved in have been in the United States,
predominately Manhattan and France. In Manhattan a number of these developments
were residential which included the St James Tower and in France a mixture of
commercial office and warehouse developments.
I aim to build a large focused international property business over the coming
years and this is the main reason why I have become Chairman of Artisan. To
further this aim we are setting up a new vehicle, Artisan International, under
the stewardship of Alain Brion. Alain was the former Group Managing Director of
Total, and his role will be to explore development opportunities in continental
Europe.
It is my view that within the development sector there will be substantial
consolidation and I believe that Artisan is the platform to enable us to acquire
a number of these companies. This course of action will take time and the
current year is highly dependent on the timescale of when certain projects and
developments complete.
To this end I will be devoting my energies to building Artisan into a Company
that we can all be proud of.
Current Year
The prospects for the coming year are dependent on the timescale for the
implementation of the strategic programme and the accounting for the proposed
acquisitions. The two main existing businesses of Rippon Homes and Artisan
Developments are in line to generate the budgeted turnover, consistent with
levels from continuing operations over the previous two years although increased
land prices are putting pressure on margins. Trading income, however, will be
insufficient to cover overhead and financing costs in the first half of the year
due to the phased production and turnover cycle in the development company -
where income is significantly biased towards the second half of the year - and
because in particular, sales of the completed offices in St. Ives have not yet
been completed. However we expect a positive outcome for the year as a whole.
The Board has recently been strengthened by the appointment of John Hemingway
who has had a long and distinguished career as an institutional pension fund
investor with UBS Philips & Drew and latterly experience in property development
including a ten acre housing development in the South East and 110,000 ft(2) of
office development in Lambeth, London. It is my intention to further strengthen
the Board and we have identified a number of other possible candidates. We aim
to make a further announcement regarding the Board in due course.
Outlook
It is the Company's aim to continue to increase its core UK business of
residential and commercial property development by merger and acquisition as
well as developing an international business, moving into larger higher-profile
developments.
We are currently in negotiations on a number of major transactions, including as
referred to earlier the 500,000 ft(2) office development at Massy near Paris. We
hope to give further details on this and other developments in the near future.
We are very committed to pursuing an aggressive merger and acquisition policy
and have the support of our bankers and other major investors to ensure that the
necessary facilities are in place to provide your Company with the additional
resources and flexibility it needs to achieve these goals.
Remuneration Committee
It is my intention to work with the Remuneration Committee of your Board to
develop a more formal incentivisation and remuneration scheme to ensure that
senior management are properly incentivised. The key objective is that a
significant element of management's remuneration is directly linked to the
profits and earnings per share and to the achievement of the aims of the Company
and its shareholders that I have outlined above.
Finally I would like to thank the management and in particular the Executive
Directors for rising to the challenge and I am looking forward to working with
them and the Board and Management to develop Artisan's business as it moves into
a new phase.
In accordance with the assurances given to the board when I was invited to join,
I confirm that it remains my intention to support this expansion programme by
initially subscribing, through Aspen Finance Ltd, for up to 50 million new
shares in the company and also through procuring and underwriting further
investment from institutional and other investors.
I am committed to working for the benefit of all shareholders and I am
determined to create shareholder value. To aid the process of communication
Artisan will be developing an interactive website to answer shareholders
questions.
All resolutions were duly passed and agreed.
Michael Stevens
Chairman
For further information please contact,
Artisan (UK) plc 01480 43 66 66
Martyn Freeman, Chief Executive
Chris Musselle, Finance Director
Takki Sulaiman/Ben Simons 020 7735 9415
Hansard Communications 07778 419 218
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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