Director/PDMR Shareholdings

RNS Number : 4144M

Avacta Group PLC

07 January 2019

 

07 January 2019

Avacta Group plc

("Avacta" or "the Group" or "the Company")

Director/PDMR Shareholdings

Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer^® biotherapeutics and reagents, announces it has granted a total of 4,444,014 options over ordinary shares of 10p each ("Ordinary Shares") to various directors and employees of the Company (the "Options").

These Options were granted under the Company's Long Term Incentive Plan*, Avacta Group plc Executive Share Option Scheme** and in the case of the Chairman, Eliot Forster, an option appointment award***.

Of the Options awarded, 1,405,960 have been issued to certain directors of the Company as set out below:

Director	Position	Number of Options granted	Exercise Price	Total options held following the grant
Eliot Forster	Chairman	340,000	25p	340,000
Alastair Smith	CEO	696,000	25p	1,560,815
Tony Gardiner	CFO	369,960	25p	909,901

* The vesting conditions are split 50% based on share price performance and 50% based on the achievement of significant commercial and technical milestones.

** Part of the annual performance bonus awards. The Options are granted and fully vested, exercisable at 25p.

*** Upon the appointment of Eliot Forster as Non-executive Chairman, in June 2018, it was agreed to grant Eliot 340,000 options over Ordinary Shares at an exercise price of 25p which will vest in thirds over a three year period from June 2018.

Trevor Nicholls, Non-executive Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee, said:

"Following the recent announcement of our Development Partnership with LG Chem Life Sciences, I am pleased to confirm that the Remuneration Committee has been able to conclude the changes to the equity arrangements of certain Directors and members of the Senior Management Team.  These arrangements continue to align the interests of the Executive Directors and Senior Management Team with the longer-term interests of our shareholders through stretching targets on commercial and operational delivery combined with share price performance."

- Ends -

For further information from Avacta Group plc, please contact:

Avacta Group plc Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer Tony Gardiner, Chief Financial Officer	Tel:  [phone] www.avacta.com
finnCap Ltd Geoff Nash / Giles Rolls - Nominated Adviser Tim Redfern / Sunila de Silva - ECM WG Partners Nigel Birks / Nigel Barnes David Wilson / Claes Spang	Tel:  [phone] www.finncap.com Tel:  [phone] Tel:  [phone] www.wgpartners.co.uk
Turner Pope Investments James Pope / Ben Turner Zyme Communications (Trade and Regional Media) Katie Odgaard Yellow Jersey (Financial Media and IR) Sarah Hollins Harriet Jackson	Tel: [phone] www.turnerpope.com Tel: [phone] www.zymecommunications.com  Tel: [phone] Tel: [phone] [e-mail]

About Avacta Group plc (www.avacta.com)

Avacta's principal focus is on its proprietary Affimer^® technology which is a novel engineered alternative to antibodies that has wide application in Life Sciences for diagnostics, therapeutics and general research and development.

Antibodies dominate markets worth in excess of $100bn despite their shortcomings. Affimer^® technology has been designed to address many of these negative performance issues, principally; the time taken to generate new antibodies, the reliance on an animal's immune response, poor specificity in many cases, and batch to batch variability.  Affimer^® technology is based on a small protein that can be quickly generated to bind with high specificity and affinity to a wide range of protein targets.

Avacta has a pre-clinical biotech development programme with an in-house focus on immuno-oncology as well as partnered development programmes. Avacta is commercialising non-therapeutic Affimer^® reagents through licensing to developers of life sciences research tools and diagnostics.

The information communicated in this announcement is inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation 596/2014.

Notification and public disclosure of transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibilities and persons closely associated with them

1.	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Alastair Smith
2.	Reason for the Notification
a)	Position/status	Chief Executive Officer
b)	Initial notification/Amendment	Initial notification
3.	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Avacta Group Plc
b)	LEI	2138009U3EG31OPMGH36
4.	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the Financial instrument, type of instrument	Options over Ordinary Shares
	Identification code	GB00BYYW9G87
b)	Nature of the transaction	Grant of Options over Ordinary Shares
c)	Price(s) and volume(s)	LTIP Exercise Price(s) Volume(s) 25.0 pence 599,100 Executive Share Option Scheme Exercise Price(s) Volume(s) 25.0 pence 96,900
d)	Aggregated information: ·      Aggregated volume ·      Price	Grant of 696,000 options over Ordinary Shares at an exercise price of 25p
e)	Date of the transaction	07 January 2019
f)	Place of the transaction	Outside a trading venue

1.	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Tony Gardiner
2.	Reason for the Notification
a)	Position/status	Chief Financial Officer
b)	Initial notification/Amendment	Initial notification
3.	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Avacta Group Plc
b)	LEI	2138009U3EG31OPMGH36
4.	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the Financial instrument, type of instrument	Options over Ordinary Shares
	Identification code	GB00BYYW9G87
b)	Nature of the transaction	Grant of Options over Ordinary Shares
c)	Price(s) and volume(s)	LTIP Exercise Price(s) Volume(s) 25.0 pence 313,000 Executive Share Option Scheme Exercise Price(s) Volume(s) 25.0 pence 56,960
d)	Aggregated information: ·      Aggregated volume ·      Price	Grant of 369,960 options over Ordinary Shares at an exercise price of 25p
e)	Date of the transaction	07 January 2019
f)	Place of the transaction	Outside a trading venue

1.	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Eliot Forster
2.	Reason for the Notification
a)	Position/status	Non-executive Chairman
b)	Initial notification/Amendment	Initial notification
3.	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Avacta Group Plc
b)	LEI	2138009U3EG31OPMGH36
4.	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the Financial instrument, type of instrument	Options over Ordinary Shares
	Identification code	GB00BYYW9G87
b)	Nature of the transaction	Grant of 340,000 share options over Ordinary shares of 10p each.
c)	Price(s) and volume(s)	Exercise Price(s) Volume(s) 25.0 pence 340,000
d)	Aggregated information: ·      Aggregated volume ·      Price	See above
e)	Date of the transaction	07 January 2019
f)	Place of the transaction	Outside a trading venue

 

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