AGM Statement

Finsbury Trust PLC
20 September 2001

                                Press Release

For Immediate Release                                    September 20, 2001

                Finsbury Trust PLC announces change of manager

                      Salomon family return to the helm

Finsbury Trust PLC, the special situations investment trust, held its Annual
General Meeting today. All resolutions were duly passed.

The Board announced that Hansa Capital Limited, run by William Salomon and
Richard Lamb will take over the management contract of the trust with effect
from 1st October 2001. Artemis Investment Management Limited will continue to
act as investment adviser to the trust. Close Finsbury Asset Management
Limited will continue to offer the trust's shares through their ISA, PEP and
Savings Scheme. Hansa Capital will manage the trust on essentially the same
terms as Close Finsbury Asset Management and the cost of the transfer will be
negligible.

Jamie Borwick, Chairman, made the following statement :

'Shareholders will be aware that since the acquisition of Rea Brothers by
Close Brothers two years ago, the company's investment portfolio has been
managed by Close Finsbury Asset Management.

Finsbury Trust is a special situations investment vehicle with an unusually
high level of ownership in the hands of one party, namely the Salomon family.
Over the years the trust has performed well, not least because of the Salomon
influence.

Your board therefore believes that the trust should return to the management
of its founding family. William Salomon now runs Hansa Capital, a fully
authorised FSA regulated investment manager. It is part of an international
investment management group with substantial funds under management.

Artemis, the trust's investment adviser will continue in its current role, so
we will continue to benefit from their stock selection skills whilst Hansa
Capital will provide strategic investment direction. The combination of their
skills should be of substantial benefit to shareholders. We would like to
thank Close Finsbury Asset Management for their services during the past two
years and we are delighted that arrangements have been made with them to
continue to offer their ISA PEP and Savings Schemes for Finsbury Trust as part
of their range of investment products.'

Commenting on the transfer, Alastair Smith, Managing Director of Close
Finsbury Asset Management, said:

' The trust has performed well since we acquired Rea Brothers but we have
always been aware of the Board's wish to align the overall management of the
fund with its principal investor.'

An Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders will be held on 24th October,
2001 to approve a change of name of the Company to Hansa Trust PLC.


For further information:

The Company:
David Haggie                             Haggie Financial Limited 020 7417 8989
Jamie Borwick                            Finsbury Trust PLC       020 7776 9000

Hansa Capital Limited:
William Salomon                                                   020 7647 5750

Close Finsbury Asset Management Limited:
Fiona Harris                             Quill Communications     020 7618 8905
Alastair Smith                           Close Finsbury           020 7426 6240



NOTES TO EDITORS

Hansa Capital Limited was formed in 1998 and is part of Hanseatic Asset
Management LBG. The group currently manages and advises on more than US$350 m
on behalf of a number of clients. Hansa Capital offers a strategic asset
management service tailored to individual clients' needs.

William Salomon is Chief Executive of Hansa Capital Limited, and a Director of
Hanseatic Asset Management LBG. Aged 43, William studied law at Cambridge at
both graduate and postgraduate level. He trained at Brown Shipley in London
and Brown Brothers, Harriman in New York. In 1988 he became a Director of Rea
Brothers Group following the death of his father, Sir Walter Salomon.

In 1987 he formed Finsbury Asset Management and built it into a dynamic
investment trust management group. By 1996 the group managed over £500 million
of assets and he successfully merged Finsbury with Rea Brothers to form the
core of that company's investment management division. Several successful
investment trust launches took place during this time including Finsbury
Worldwide Pharmaceutical Trust, Finsbury Life Sciences Investment Trust,
Finsbury Technology Trust and Finsbury Underwriting Investment Trust. Finsbury
Worldwide Pharmaceutical Trust was launched in 1995 and was one of the first
worldwide sector rather than country specific funds. All of these funds were
innovative and ahead of their time. In late 1999 the Salomon family sold Rea
Brothers Group to Close Brothers in order to allow that business to develop
within a larger but like-minded parent.

William also has considerable industrial experience having served on the board
of Swiss based Immuno International AG, a biotechnology group which was
floated on the Geneva/Zurich Stock Exchange and sold in 1996 to Baxter
International for over US$700m. He is an active board member of Ocean Wilsons
a Bermuda based investment and shipping concern, Manganese Bronze Holdings a
British engineering group and Aberdeen Emerging Economies Trust.

Richard Lamb, also aged 43, is Investment Director of Hansa Capital Limited.
Richard graduated from Oxford having read English Language and Literature. He
trained at Samuel Montagu in their Investment Management Division and then in
1983 joined John Govett & Co Ltd becoming a director and private equity
holder. He was manager of the Govett Atlantic Investment Trust, one of the top
quartile performing funds in the US Equity Market. He left in 1988 to join
Rothschild Asset Management and became Head of US equities. He served on the
Advisory Board of Leveraged Capital Holdings and created and managed Five
Arrows Chile Fund, one of the first emerging market funds.

In 1993 he was recruited as Head of Global Emerging Markets by Morgan Grenfell
Asset Management. Over the next four years he was responsible for building an
institutional business with US $3 billion under management.