Investments

NewMedia SPARK PLC 23 May 2000 FURTHER POSITIVE FUNDING NEWS AT SPARK NewMedia SPARK is pleased to announce positive funding and upward valuation events at three more of its investments. Clipserver.com has announced that it will be joining the AIM market on 31st May following a £5.25m fund raising at 70p per share. SPARK paid £550,000 for an 11% stake in Clipserver at a price of 30p a share in February of this year. At the 70p placing price SPARK's shareholding is worth approximately £1.28m, and in addition SPARK holds warrants to subscribe for a further 916,667 shares at 30p which if exercised would lead to a further profit of approximately £0.32m. SPARK also announces that a further funding round has been completed at Pricerunner.com, the Scandinavian intelligent shopping agent business in which SPARK holds a 46% stake as a result of its acquisition of the Cell Ventures portfolio in February 2000. The terms of the funding are commercially confidential but include a significant external investment by Atle, a leading Swedish Private Fund, at a premium to the value at which SPARK acquired its shareholding. Finally, dealings on the AIM market are expected to commence on 25th May in e-comsport group plc, following an £8m placing at 75p per share. Through its joint venture with Olympic Resources, SPARK has an economic interest in approximately 1.08m shares in e-comsport which at the placing price would be valued at £810,000, approximately a 60% uplift on SPARK's cost. Commenting on these events Michael Whitaker, CEO of SPARK, said: 'Notwithstanding recent market turbulence, we are pleased that our investee companies continue to make significant progress. These latest valuation events take the number of our investee companies that have so far announced external valuation events to 9, out of our total portfolio of direct and indirect investments of 39 companies. All have resulted in an increased valuation over SPARK's original cost, several very significantly so. These latest funding events illustrate that external funding is still available for quality businesses with attractive prospects. We are presently in discussions regarding further funding rounds for several more of our investee companies, and all are progressing well. We shall be commenting further on the value of and outlook for our portfolio with the announcement of our preliminary results for the period to 31st March 2000, which we expect to make within the week'. ____________________________________________________________ For further information, please contact: NewMedia SPARK 020 7851 7777 Michael Whitaker Buchanan Communications Tim Anderson 020 7466 5000
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