Acquisition

W.H. Ireland Group PLC
20 November 2003



                                   20 November 2003

              W.H. Ireland Group plc ('W.H. Ireland' or the 'Company')


                          Acquisition of Ingram Phillips,
                       a Cardiff based IFA, and Trading Update

W.H. Ireland, the Manchester based financial services group with 10 UK offices,
today announces the further expansion of its Welsh operations with the
acquisition of Ingram Phillips Independent Financial Services ('Ingram
Phillips'), the independent financial adviser based in Cardiff.

Ingram Phillips has operated in South Wales for 13 years. W.H. Ireland has
acquired the goodwill and personnel of the partnership and Mary Phillips, its
principal, has entered into a service contract with W.H. Ireland (Financial
Services) Ltd., of which she will become a director.

Ingram Phillips has traded profitably for many years and in the year to March
2003 had sales of some £686,000 and reported profits before partnership drawings
of £436,000. The business will be a division of W.H. Ireland (Financial
Services) Ltd. and will continue to trade from its existing premises in Cardiff
under the trading name of Ingram Phillips.

The consideration for the purchase will be a combination of cash and shares with
a maximum consideration over the earn-out period of 2 years amounting to
£1.275m. The initial consideration payable on completion is £375,000 in cash and
£100,000 by the issue of 222,222 ordinary shares of 5p each in W.H. Ireland. The
remaining consideration will be payable over a two year period, a proportion of
which is subject to the newly acquired business achieving certain performance
criteria. This deferred consideration is payable by a mixture of cash and
shares, at W.H. Ireland's discretion.

Laurie Beevers, Chief Executive of W.H. Ireland, said:-

'We are pleased to welcome Mary Phillips and her team to the W.H. Ireland Group.
The acquisition of Ingram Phillips is without doubt a further strengthening of
our existing Manchester-based IFA operation. This deal, following on from the
recent acquisition of the Carr Sheppards stockbroking business in Cardiff,
increases our presence within Wales giving us a total of four offices.'

W.H. Ireland's year end is November and the Company would expect to announce its
year end results in the early part of March. As already announced at the time of
the interim figures, the Company has witnessed a significant improvement in
trading conditions. The Company is pleased to announce that despite the
continued uneven nature of the market, that trend has continued in both of the
Company's principal areas of operation, namely stockbroking and corporate
finance.

                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange