Acquisition

Derwent Valley Holdings PLC
29 May 2001



                         DERWENT VALLEY HOLDINGS PLC


                     £21.7m acquisition in Central London

Derwent Valley Holdings plc ('Derwent Valley'), the specialist Central London
property investor/refurbisher, has exchanged contracts to purchase the
prominent 31,772 sq. m (342,000 sq. ft) freehold warehouse building, Centric
House, Shoreditch High Street, London E1. This location is just north of
Broadgate, at the centre of the proposed regeneration for the area.

Derwent Valley will finance the purchase of £21.78m (plus costs) from existing
banking facilities. It is the intention to refurbish the building once vacated
by the vendors, Hays Commercial Services Ltd, which will take a leaseback for
12 months at a rent of £1,450,000 p.a. During this period Derwent Valley will
formulate its strategy to accommodate a mixture of uses on the site ranging
from, B1 offices to storage. The building is currently used as a document
storage warehouse and occupies an entire island site of 0.496 hectares (1.22
acres).

This acquisition follows last month's £22.2m purchase of an office property at
55-65 North Wharf Road, Paddington, London W2 and the £75m sale of non-core
assets since the start of the year.


John Burns, Managing Director of Derwent Valley, comments:

'This acquisition continues our policy of investing in improving areas with
strong growth prospects. Centric House is ideally located to benefit from the
substantial development and regeneration of the area to the north of the City.
This project offers the potential of creating an innovative refurbishment
scheme, which can be undertaken in phases. The existing building has
substantial scope having been used for warehousing for many years and we will
review our options over the leaseback period'.


                                                                   29 May 2001

ENQUIRIES:

Derwent Valley Holdings plc                                  Tel: [phone]
John Burns, Managing Director

College Hill                                                 Tel: [phone]
Gareth David                                Email: [e-mail]
Lisa Pearson                                Email: [e-mail]