Notification of Major Interes

RNS Number : 2201Y

Carphone Warehouse Group PLC

17 December 2010

 



RNS Announcement

Friday 17 December 2010

For Immediate Release

Carphone Warehouse Group plc ("Company")

Notification of Major Interests in Shares

1. Identity of the issuer or the underlying issuer of existing shares to which voting rights are attached	Carphone Warehouse Group plc
2. Reason for the notification (please tick the appropriate box or boxes)
An acquisition or disposal of voting rights		X
An acquisition or disposal of financial instruments which may result in the acquisition of shares already issued to which voting rights are attached
An acquisition or disposal of instruments with similar economic effect to qualifying financial instruments
An event changing the breakdown of voting rights
Other (please specify):
3. Full name of person(s) subject to the notification obligation	TIAA-CREF Investment Management, LLC on behalf of the accounts listed in Exhibit B Teachers Advisors, Inc. on behalf of the funds listed in Exhibit C
4. Full name of shareholder(s) (if different from 3.)	See number 3
5. Date of the transaction and date on which the threshold is crossed or reached	12/10/2010
6. Date on which issuer notified	12/14/2010
7. Threshold(s) that is/are crossed or reached:	3%

8: Notified Details
A: Voting rights attached to shares
Class/type of shares If possible using the ISIN CODE	Situation previous to the Triggering transaction		Resulting situation after the triggering transaction
	Number of Shares	Number of Voting Rights	Number of Shares	Number of Voting Rights		% of Voting Rights
			Direct	Direct	Indirect	Direct	Indirect
GB0008787029	13,353,016	13,353,016	14,913,027	14,913,027	0	3.26%

B. Qualifying Financial Instruments
Resulting situation after the triggering transaction
Type of Financial Instrument	Expiration Date	Exercise/Conversion Period/Date	Number of Voting Rights that may be acquired if the instrument is exercised/converted	% of Voting Rights
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

C: Financial Instruments with similar economic effect to Qualifying Financial Instruments
Resulting situation after the triggering transaction
Type of financial instrument	Exercise price	Expiration date	Exercise/ Conversion period	Number of voting rights instrument refers to	% of voting rights
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Nominal	Delta
					N/A	N/A

Total (A+B+C)
Number of Voting Rights	% of Voting Rights
14,913,027	3.26%

9. Chain of controlled undertakings through which the voting rights and/or the financial instruments are effectively held, if applicable

The College Retirement Equities Fund ("CREF") hereby informs you that on December 10,2010, CREF purchased 872,057 shares of Carphone Warehouse Group plc, bringing its total holdings in your company to 13,848,891 shares.  CREF owns these shares through two of its investment accounts, the Global Equities Account and the Stock Account.  It is our understanding the total voting shares outstanding of Playtech Ltd are 457, 054,123 bringing CREF's ownership in your company to a 3.03% level. For your information, CREF is a U.S. based investment company which is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC").  CREF has multiple investment accounts, each with separate investment objectives and policies.  All assets in the accounts are beneficially owned by CREF, and all the accounts are managed by TIAA-CREF Investment Management, LLC, an SEC registered investment adviser. Additionally, affiliates of CREF purchased 687,954 shares of Carphone Warehouse Group plc, bringing its total holdings in your company to 1,064,136 shares.  These holdings are owned by the TIAA-CREF Funds ("Funds") and the TIAA-CREF Life Funds ("Life Funds"), each of which are SEC registered investment companies.  The Funds and Life Funds are managed by Teachers Advisors, Inc., an SEC registered investment adviser that is affiliated with TIAA-CREF Investment Management, LLC.  These affiliated funds, aggregated with those of CREF, own a total of 14,913,027, or 3.26% of the outstanding voting shares of your company.   Because Teachers Advisors, Inc. and TIAA-CREF Investment Management LLC follow the same policies when voting these shares, we are aggregating the holdings for purposes of this letter. (see Exhibit A)

Proxy Voting:
10. Name of the proxy holder:	TIAA-CREF Investment Management, LLC / Teachers Advisors, Inc.
11. Number of voting rights proxy holder will cease/acquire to hold:	N/A
12. Date on which proxy holder will cease/acquire to hold voting rights:	N/A

EXHIBIT A

Summary of Holdings of Carphone Warehouse Group plc

Between December 10,2010 - December 13, 2010

TILAA-CREF Investment Management LLP
	CREF Global Equities Account	CREF Stock Account	Total Holdings CREF	Total Percentage Held
Holdings as at Dec 10, 2010	7,643,990	5,332,844	12,976,834	2.839%
Transactions as of Dec 10, 2010	-	872,057	872,057
Holdings as of Dec 13, 2010	7,643,990	6,204,901	13,848,891	3.030%

Teachers Advisors, Inc
	TIAA-CREF Life Growth & Income Fund	TIAA-CREF Funds Growth & Income Fund	Total Holdings Mutual Funds	Total Percentage Held
Holdings as at Dec 10, 2010	13,419	362,763	376,182	0.082%
Transactions as of Dec10, 2010	24,469	663,485	687,954
Holdings as of Dec 13, 2010	37,888	1,026,248	1,064,136	0.233%

Aggregate Holding as of December 13, 2010
Total Shares Held	14,913,027

Voting Shares Outstanding as of December 13,2010
Total Voting Shares	457,054,123

Total Percentage Held
December 10, 2010	2.922%
December 13, 2010	3.263%

Exhibit B

TIAA-CREF Investet Management, LLC

College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF)*

·    CREF Stock Account

·    CREF Global Equities Account

*Registered Investment Company

Exhibit C

Teachers Advisors, Inc

TIAA-CREF Funds*

·    Growth & Income Fund

TIAA-CREF Life Funds*

·    Growth & Income Fund

*Registerd Investment Companies

Further information:

Kate Ferry                              [phone]

Tim Morris                              [phone]

 

END

 

 

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