Alpha Strategic Regulatory News Announcement

Alpha Strategic PLC - Acquisition

RNS Number:3952D
Alpha Strategic PLC
23 May 2006


23 May, 2006


                              Alpha Strategic PLC


                     ACQUISITION OF WINTON ADVISORS LIMITED

Alpha Strategic plc ('Alpha' or 'the Company'), is pleased to announce its first
acquisition since its successful IPO last year. Alpha has agreed to acquire
Winton Advisors Limited ('Winton Advisors'), a wholly owned subsidiary of Winton
Capital Management Limited ('WCM'). Winton Advisors' business is to provide
services to WCM and participate in the revenue stream of one of WCM's recently
launched funds.

Winton Advisors has entered into a contract to receive 50% of WCM's management
and incentive fees from the Global Futures Fund ('Fund'), a recently launched
fund with a $100million capacity, aimed primarily at the Swiss institutional
market. Alpha's directors who have experience in the field, will provide advice
on corporate structures, regulation and marketing approaches for this new fund.
$11.5m has already been raised and WCM and Alpha are confident that the Fund
will reach its capacity by the end of the year.

WCM is entitled to receive an annual income stream of approximately 1% of funds
under management and 20% of any increase in net assets, subject to a number of
performance conditions. Once the Fund reaches capacity WCM should receive $1m
per annum plus performance fees, and 50% of such fees shall after receipt be
payable to Winton Advisors.

Consideration for the purchase is £327,010 to be satisfied by the issue of
308,500 ordinary shares of 1 pence each ('Ordinary Shares') in Alpha at a price
of £1.06 per share. An application will be made to the London Stock Exchange for
such Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM. Admission is expected on
26 May 2006.

WCM is a London-based global hedge and futures fund manager. Established in 1997
by David Harding, Osman Murgian and Martin J Hunt to offer investment advice in
the international futures and forwards markets. David Harding also has over 20
years experience in the managed futures industry. Mr Harding was one of the
co-founders of Adam, Harding & Lueck Ltd, now part of the Man Group PLC.

WCM trades over 100 futures and forwards markets worldwide using a proprietary
model based on the statistical properties of market behaviour, and currently has
over $5.0 billion under management.

Related Party Transaction

David Harding and some of his fellow shareholders in WCM are also shareholders
in a personal capacity in Alpha. Mr. Harding, who owns 64.7% of WCM, has an
existing holding of 337,601 Ordinary Shares in Alpha representing 11.25% of
Alpha existing Ordinary Shares. Therefore David Harding is deemed to be a
substantial shareholder in Alpha and a Related Party under the AIM rules. As
such the acquisition of Winton Advisors is deemed to be a related party
transaction under the AIM rules.

The Directors, having consulted with Strand Partners Limited, consider that the
terms of this transaction are fair and reasonable insofar as the shareholders of
Alpha are concerned.

Colin Barrow, Chairman of Alpha said: 'This is a great first transaction for
Alpha. Since flotation, we have been extremely careful to ensure that our first
acquisition was of the highest possible quality, as this would set the tone for
the future of the Company. By agreeing a transaction of this nature with WCM, we
have secured participation in a top flight hedge fund manager, with an
established track record. We believe this transaction will attract the interest
of similar high quality managers'

David Harding of WCM said: 'We were excited by the concept and model of Alpha
right from the outset, hence our initial investment. We believe it to be an
excellent business model and one that will allow consolidation, liquidity and
flexibility for managers without any loss of control. We believe that the
creation of a high quality group of managers under the Alpha umbrella will be an
important contribution towards a future structure for the industry by creating
stability, an acceptable level of transparency, and also allowing managers to
diversify.'


                                    - ends -


For further information:

Alpha Strategic plc                      0207 222 2223
Kit Malthouse/Colin Barrow

Maitland                                 020 7379 5151
Neil Bennett
Georgina Pepys


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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