26th Jul 2005 13:53
26 July 2005 Acquisition of Freehold Property at Ancells Business Park, Fleet Microgen announces that it has acquired the freehold of Victory House, AncellsBusiness Park, Fleet, Hampshire from British Overseas Bank Nominees Ltd andWGTC Nominees Ltd for a purchase price of ‚£5.25 million payable in cash. Theacquisition has been initially funded from Microgen's existing cash resources,however, it is intended that new commercial mortgage facilities will be enteredinto to finance up to 80% of the purchase price.Victory House is a two storey office building in a commercial area of Fleet,with approximately 23,700 square feet of available space and has 122 carparking spaces. The Board intends to consolidate the current head officefunctions located in Windsor, together with the operations of the two recentacquisitions of R/Base Limited (Camberley) and Lynx Wealth Management SystemsLimited (Eastleigh) into the new facility in Fleet. In addition, some softwaredevelopment and support operations will be moved into the Fleet facilitytogether with some operations currently based in Microgen's London office.The new facility will provide Microgen with more flexibility to meet the spacerequirements of the Group whilst also providing the benefits of consolidationof the existing operations. The consolidation of these operations into Fleetwill give rise to an exceptional operating charge in the second half of thecurrent financial year which is not expected to exceed ‚£0.25 million.The transaction is expected to be broadly earnings neutral.Contact :Mike Phillips, Group Finance Director 01753-847122 Giles Sanderson, Financial Dynamics 020-7831-3113 Ben Way, Financial Dynamics ENDMICROGEN PLCRelated Shares:
Aptitude