Holding in Company

Allen PLC
1 February 2001



LETTER TO:   ALLEN PLC

5p ORDINARY SHARES ('SHARES')

We write to advise you that we, Schroder Investment Management Limited, have an
interest in 4,173,676 shares which are held in portfolios managed by us on a
discretionary basis for clients under investment management agreements.

Included in this figure are.

(i)  2,990,676 shares held in (a) unit trust(s) operated and managed by
     another wholly-owned subsidiary, Schroder Unit Trusts Limited (SUTL), and
     registered or to be registered in the name of Chase Nominees Limited and

(ii) 1,183,000 shares neither registered nor to be registered in the name of
     Schroder Nominees. The registration details are shown on the schedule      
     below.

Another wholly-owned subsidiary, Schroder Investment Management North America
Limited (SIMNA Ltd), is managing on a discretionary basis (a) portfolio(s)
holding a further 148,500 shares, while an affiliated company, Schroder
Investment Management North America Inc (SIMNA Inc), is managing (a)
portfolio(s) on a similar basis holding a further 63,000 shares.  These shares
are registered or to be registered in the name of Chase Nominees Limited.

Another affiliated company, Schroder Hermes, is managing 51,417 shares in (a)
portfolio(s) on a passive (index tracker) basis for clients under investment
management agreements. These shares are registered or to be registered in the
name of Chase Nominees Limited.

We believe that we and our subsidiary and affiliated companies are therefore
interested in an overall aggregate of 4,437,393 shares, representing some
10.683% of the total number of shares in issue, namely 241,535,835 shares.

This notification is made to you:

(a) in respect of our interest as investment managers and also by virtue of the
    fact that we are the parent company of SUTL.

(b) on behalf of Schroder Hermes, SIMNA Inc and SUTL in relation to the         
    interests they are treated as having respectively under the Companies Act   
    1985 (the Act), and

(c) on behalf of Schroders plc., our holding company, which is treated as
    having an interest in all of the above shares under the Act by virtue of
    its ownership of Schroder Hermes, SIMNA Inc and ourselves.


FROM:    ALISON DUNN
         (COMPLIANCE REPORTING ASSISTANT)
         SCHRODER INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LIMITED



                            ALLEN PLC
                            SCHEDULE

                       5p ORDINARY SHARES

REGISTRATION                                   AMOUNT

Imperial Pension Fund                          700,000
Nutraco Nominees Ltd                           133,000
BT Globenet Nominees Ltd a/c 6B                350,000
                                             ---------
                                             1,183,000
                                             ---------