Acquisition

Tribal Group PLC 3 September 2001 Tribal Group plc ('Tribal Group' or the 'Company') Acquisition of Ben Johnson-Hill Associates Limited Tribal Group is pleased to announce the acquisition of the whole of the issued share capital of Ben Johnson-Hill Associates Limited ('Ben Johnson-Hill Associates'). Since its inception in 1989, Ben Johnson-Hill Associates has grown to become the leading provider of diagnostic services to further education colleges. It currently provides two principal services to the further education sector: Total Benchmarking Assessment (a comprehensive analysis of a further education college's revenues, costs and operations) and Teaching and Learning Effective Benchmarking (a comparison of a further education college's student results and achievements against costs). In addition, Ben Johnson-Hill Associates has developed Strategic Benchmarking Assessment, a service for Local Authorities that provides a high level review of their cost base. In the year ended 31 March 2001, Ben Johnson-Hill Associates achieved an operating profit (after normalised director's remuneration) of £412,000 on a turnover of £1,208,000. The initial consideration of £3,325,448, which includes the acquisition of cash balances of £675,448, is to be satisfied by: * The issue of 189,189 ordinary shares of 5p each in Tribal Group ('New Tribal Group Shares'); * £2,375,448 in bank guaranteed loan notes; and * £400,000 in cash Further consideration will be payable based on the growth in the operating profits of Ben Johnson-Hill Associates in the three years ending 31 March 2004. The further consideration will be payable in Tribal Group shares and will be subject to a maximum of £4.25 million. Application has been made for admission of the New Tribal Group Shares to trading on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange (' AIM'). It is expected that the New Tribal Group Shares will commence trading on AIM on 7 September 2001. The New Tribal Group Shares will rank pari passu in all respects with the existing ordinary shares of the Company. Henry Pitman, Chief Executive of Tribal Group, commented: 'We are delighted that Ben Johnson-Hill Associates is joining Tribal Group. The company is well known to us and is highly regarded as the leading benchmarking business in the further education market, having a benchmarking database of 350 of the 450 colleges. The company is also working for a number of universities and with local authorities. The acquisition of Ben Johnson-Hill Associates complements our existing interests in the education sector and, in particular, allows Tribal Group to offer an unrivalled range of consultancy services to the further education market. The methodology and technologies developed by Ben Johnson-Hill Associates will now allow the company, as part of Tribal Group, to diversify into other areas of the public and private sector.' For further information contact: Henry Pitman, Chief Executive, Tribal Group plc Tel: 01386 702900 Nick Naylor, Granville Baird Tel: 020 7488 1212

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Tribal Group (TRB)
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