Text 100 Group set to seek full FTSE listing

Text 100 Group announced this week that it expects to seek a full

listing on the London Stock Exchange next month.

Text, which has been quoted on OFEX since 1997, is hoping that a main

market listing will enhance its stature and market profile, and allow it

to create the kind of share option plans with which to attract top

staff.

The listing will see Mark Adams, who co-founded the group with chairman

Tom Lewis, sell half of the 18 per cent holding in the group that he

shares with his wife to provide two million of the 3.9 million shares

Text will make available for the flotation.

Adams, who did not want to be a plc director, stepped down from the

board this summer to concentrate on advising clients and writing a book.

He has just returned from a three-month sabbatical and is now working

four days a week.

Lewis said: ’Mark and I have both been with the company for 18 years.

His first love always was, and is, PR and doing PR. I’m into the

corporate finance side of it.’

The group’s 11 board directors currently hold 56 per cent of its shares,

while Katie Kemp, president of its subsidiary August.One, holds three

per cent, and 12 per cent is held by the employee share ownership

scheme.

Text 100 is the largest specialist IT PR business in the UK. It employs

400 people in 30 offices across Europe, the US, Africa and

Asia-Pacific.

Its clients include Microsoft, BT, Compaq, Orange, Xerox and

Gateway.

The group originally announced its intention to pursue a FTSE listing

within two years in February 1999.

Its subsidiary brands include international networks Text 100,

August.One and Bite Communications, and national agencies Joe Public

Relations, Evus, extra PR and Brand X.

Leader, p8.