Acquisition

Wilmington Group Plc
09 February 2006



For immediate release                                            9 February 2006


                              WILMINGTON GROUP PLC 

                         Acquisition of Smee & Ford Ltd


Wilmington Group plc ('Wilmington' or the 'Group'), the professional information
and training group, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Smee & Ford Ltd
('Smee').

Wilmington has acquired all of the issued share capital of Smee for an initial
consideration of £4.28 million in cash with a further payment of up to £0.5m
based on the future performance of Smee to 2011. The maximum aggregate
consideration payable for 100% of Smee will be £4.78m.

Smee was established in the mid 19th century. Its core business is the provision
to charities in the UK of a subscription information service providing them with
information on legacies granted in wills, along with related training and
consultancy. The great majority of the top 1,000 charities in the UK are customers 
of Smee. Smee also owns the rights to the market leading 'Mortascreen' deceased 
mailing list suppression database and 'Halo' deceased identity fraud prevention 
product.

In the year to 31st March 2005 Smee generated profit before interest and tax of
£1.046m. Changes in the business in the current year have reduced profitability,
but the ongoing profitability before interest and tax of Smee is expected to be
in excess of £500k pa.

The acquisition of Smee will reinforce the strength of Wilmington's Legal &
Regulatory division within charity and financial markets and provide exciting
opportunities for leveraging key brands and databases across the Group.
                                   
                                     - ends-

For further information, please contact:

Wilmington Group plc                                               020 7422 6800

Charles Brady, Chief Executive
Basil Brookes, Finance Director


Weber Shandwick Square Mile                                        020 7067 0700

Nick Oborne, Kirsty Raper or Yvonne Alexander


Note to Editors

Wilmington Group plc is one of the UK's leading providers of information and
training for professional business markets. The Group provides training,
arranges industry events and publishes magazines, directories, databases, and
special reports focused primarily on its four principal sectors of Legal &
Regulatory, Healthcare, Media and Entertainment and Design and Construction.
Capitalised at approximately £154 million, Wilmington floated on the London
Stock Exchange in 1995.



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