Co-Investment Agreement and Investment
Property & Capital Group PLC
2 March 2000
Property & Capital Group Plc (the 'Group')
Co-Investment Agreement and Investment
The Group, holding a sound residential property portfolio of some £60 million,
announces that it intends to broaden its scope of investment, particularly to
high-tech areas.
The Group already holds some investments in other areas, including an
investment of some 600,000 shares, acquired at 3p per share, in Corporate
Executive Search, re-admitted yesterday to AIM.
The investment activity is expected to extend from minority investment to
acquisitions which can, with the benefit of the Group's ability to provide
cash from its asset base, grow on to achieve full potential.
The Group has reached agreement with Skye Capital Partners, which is
controlled by the Group's largest shareholders, the Adair Trusts, that the
Group may co-invest alongside Skye Capital Partners in high-tech investments.
Skye Capital Partners over the last three years has made over £14 million of
such investments and commitments in a portfolio concentrated on internet
protocol telephony, telematics and IT contracting, including a recent
investment in Science Dynamics, a US public company, of which Skye Capital
Partners holds 3%.
John Minshull-Beech, Managing Director of Skye Capital Partners, has agreed to
accept appointment as investment Director to advise the Group Board on
relevant investments. John Minshull-Beech qualified as a Chartered Accountant
at Arthur Anderson, and spent four years in Morgan Grenfell's corporate
finance department, then 10 years at Chelsfield PLC with senior executive
responsibility for its larger joint ventures and venture capital investments.
He has been Managing Director of Skye Capital Partners since 1998.
The first two investments to be made by the Group have been selected: -
Telematix Limited, of Andover, Hampshire has developed a leading edge core
telematics system enabling it to offer a number of complementary services from
a technical platform to a number of different market sectors internationally.
Its first systems are applicable to vehicle location and fleet management, and
combine cost effective use of satellite location, trunk radio and cellular GSM
communication. To date Telematix, whose sales began in December, has focused
on two vehicle based services, one in the vehicle security market (eGuard) and
one in the fleet management market (eMatix), being the most mature market
segments in an emerging industry. eGuard has been received with enthusiasm
and endorsed by insurers, eMatix is targeted at commercial fleet management.
Much more is expected to be heard of Telematix. The Group's investment will
be £500,000 to acquire a material stake.
IPBell is one of the first Next Generation Operators to simultaneously
transport multi-media traffic, including voice, video, fax, and data across a
worldwide network of IP (internet) nodes. IPBell will provide the backbone
equipment, marketing and worldwide presence enabling individual in-country
operators to offer their customers access to the most technologically advanced
network in the world, marketed under one brand name. Strategic partners
including Cisco Systems, Science Synamics Corporation, Oracle,
Hewlett-Packard, Simplified Telesys, Belle Systems and Jyra Research. The
Group is making an initial investment of US$250,000.
Further information on Telematix and IPBell can be obtained on: -
www.telematix.co.uk
www.scidyn.com
www.hp.com/ssg/telecom
2 March 2000