Purchase of head office freehold

RNS Number : 2902N

Eckoh PLC

25 July 2014

 



For Immediate Release                                                                                                                                25 July 2014

Eckoh plc

("Eckoh" or "the Company")

Purchase of head office freehold

Eckoh plc (AIM: ECK), a global provider of secure payment products and customer service solutions, is pleased to announce that it has successfully reached agreement to acquire the freehold of its existing Hemel Hempstead head office for a consideration of £2.9m.

The purchase of the freehold will result in an annual rent saving of £0.2m. The new arrangement will also allow Eckoh to take ownership of an additional 4,050 square feet of office space in addition to the current 11,670 square feet currently rented, which will support ongoing growth and the Company's increasing head count.

At the end of the current lease in March 2015, the freehold to the premises will be acquired for £2.9m. A deposit of £0.4m is payable immediately and will be funded from existing cash reserves with the remaining £2.5m to be paid upon completion in March 2015. Options for funding the remaining consideration are currently being explored.

Chief Executive Officer, Nik Philpot commented:

 "The acquisition of the freehold is a very positive step for Eckoh, not only does it secure our office requirements for the immediate future at a lower overall cost, it also avoids what would have been an expensive and disruptive move to alternative premises. The additional space will allow us to comfortably accommodate our medium term planned increases in headcount and provide a better overall working environment for our staff."

Enquiries:

Eckoh plc

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer

Adam Moloney, Group Finance Director

www.eckoh.com                                                                                                                             Tel: [phone]

Buchanan

Jeremy Garcia, Gabriella Clinkard                                                                                                Tel: [phone]

N+1 Singer

Shaun Dobson, Ben Wright                                                                                                           Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors:

About Eckoh plc

Eckoh plc (AIM: ECK) is a global provider of secure payment products and customer service solutions, working with organisations in over 10 countries around the world.

Eckoh has a range of secure payment products that are designed to help merchants become compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards ('PCI DSS') and to reduce the risk of fraud by eliminating card data from contact centres and IT environments. Eckoh's CallGuard product can be deployed on the customer's site or hosted in the Cloud. It allows Contact Centres to take card payments from customers without their agents seeing, hearing or accessing card data in any way. Eckoh has been a PCI DSS Level One accredited Service Provider since 2010 and currently process over $1 billion in card payments annually.

Eckoh's customer service solutions enable payments, transactions and enquiries to be processed without the caller needing to talk to a contact centre agent. This significantly reduces our clients' costs, whilst freeing up their agents to deal with more complex enquiries. These solutions are delivered over the phone, web and mobile devices. Eckoh is the largest provider of such hosted services in the UK.

For more information, visit: www.eckoh.com or www.eckoh.us

 

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