Cattles Shareholders’ Association

Latest Developments

According to a recent Stock Exchange Announcement pertaining to the General Meeting of shareholders held on 16 December 2009, Margaret Young, Executive Chairman, stated that there was not a case for winding up the Company. The Board of Directors do not believe that a winding up would be in the interests of stakeholders in Cattles. Shareholders are alarmed at the Company’s serious loss of capital.

At the meeting, Margaret Young, made the following statement:

"The Board of Cattles and I very much regret that today's update confirms the significant loss suffered by our shareholders. However, in our current financial situation, our duty now has to be to preserve value for creditors. We do not believe that the pursuit of any such petition to wind up the Company would be in the interests of any of our shareholders."

In a Financial Times article on 15 December 2009, it was reported that Cattles is being investigated by the Financial Services Authority. Further, PwC have resigned as the company’s auditors and have been replaced by Grant Thornton.

In a statement made to the London Stock Exchange on 25 November 2009, the Company stated that it had sold Cattles Invoice Finance for £70.4 million in cash in September. The proceeds of the sale were used to repay bank indebtedness of approximately £65.6 million. It also stated that:

"The Company considers that the Group’s balance sheet at 31 December 2008 would have been likely to show a deficiency of shareholders’ funds of £197.0 million, with loans and advances to customers of £2.5 billion and gross external borrowings of £2.7 billion. These numbers are unaudited and are subject to material change."

Edwin Coe is working with barristers and forensic accountants to determine whether legal action should be taken against the former directors of the Company or against PwC, the former auditors of Cattles.

Cattles shareholders may wish to visit the website www.cattlesshares.co.uk with a view to liaising with other people in a similar situation. The purpose of the website is to provide a central method of communication and to make views known to the Board of Directors. The website is promoted by Ian Dearing, a former shareholder in Cattles.

It should be emphasised that the cattlesshares.co.uk website is a separate website from that of Edwin Coe’s and we will not pass on any details of members of the Cattles Shareholders’ Association to Ian Dearing.