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.
