Completion of airline division listing

29 June 2012

Lonrho Plc("Lonrho" or "the Company")Lonrho completes the separate listing of its airline division, to be renamed 'Fastjet', and Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou's easyGroup Holdings Ltd to become a shareholder in the airline

Lonrho is pleased to announce the successful completion of the acquisition of Lonrho's airline division by Rubicon Diversified Investments Plc ("Rubicon", LN AIM: RUBI) for a transaction value of US$85.7m, satisfied by the issue of Rubicon ordinary shares to Lonrho.

Lonrho previously announced its intention to separately list its airline division in an RNS dated 13 June 2012 and the transaction was approved at a Rubicon General Meeting today. Rubicon has now completed the acquisition of Lonrho Aviation and the commencement of dealings on AIM in the enlarged share capital of Rubicon occurs at 8.00 a.m. on Monday 2 July 2012 ("Admission").

Following completion of the transaction, Lonrho's holding in the enlarged share capital of Rubicon will be 1,160,037,455 ordinary shares comprising 73.7%. The listing of the airline division into Rubicon provides the platform for further development of the airline and Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of easyJet, has become a shareholder in the enlarged company through his easyGroup Holdings Limited ("easyGroup"). This establishes a solid platform for the future development of the airline into a low cost carrier for Africa and Rubicon will be renamed to be branded 'Fastjet' under the terms of the easyGroup brand licence agreement. This future development will be managed by a specialist aviation team assembled by Sir Stelios and to be led by Ed Winter, who will become the CEO of Rubicon / FastJet.

Ed Winter was previously the CEO of GO, the low cost airline of British Airways, and thereafter the COO of easyJet for five years. He will join the Fastjet board taking up one of the two Board appointments to be nominated by Sir Stelios' easyGroup.

Lonrho has now completed its investment in the aviation sector and will become a more passive shareholder in the aviation business as FastJet implements its own strategy of developing the established Lonrho Aviation route network and operational platforms into the FastJet business model, delivering a low cost scheduled passenger airline to meet the significant growing demand for regional travel within Africa.

The focus for Lonrho management moving forwards will be on further developing Lonrho's main business divisions in the agriculture, agri-logistics and oil and gas support services and infrastructure sectors.

Lonrho intends to announce its Interim Results on or around Friday 3 August 2012. The Company will update the market at that time on progress within its remaining core divisions. 

Going forward, Lonrho will reflect Rubicon's financial results within the Company's consolidated financials as a subsidiary undertaking. Rubicon will also report on its results to the market separately going forward in accordance with AIM rules requirements. Lonrho's interim results will reflect the impact of a charge for share based payments, in part as a result of completion of the Rubicon acquisition of Lonrho Aviation on 29 June 2012.

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