Director/PDMR Shareholding

Ashtead Group plc

17 July 2012

                               ASHTEAD GROUP PLC                               

                          Director / PDMR Shareholder                          

Ashtead Group pc ("the Company") announces that the awards made to its
executive directors in July 2009 under the Company's Performance Share Plan
vested on 13 July 2012. As a result the following directors received the net
number of vested shares shown in the table below, together with their total
shareholding:

Director            Net shares          Total number of     % of issued shares 
                                        shares held                            
                    received                                                   
                                                                               
Geoff Drabble       605,198             1,303,297           0.25               
                                                                               
Brendan Horgan      183,099             493,874             0.09               

The net number of shares vested and retained by the directors is after selling
sufficient shares in order to fund the income and employment taxes payable on
the vesting of the award. Each director sold these shares on 16 July 2012 at
261p per share and the number of shares sold was G Drabble 655,631 and B Horgan
114,160.