Acquisition of an equity interest in credit recove
JD GROUP - Acquisition of an equity interest in credit recovery management JD GROUP LIMITED (Registration Number 1981/009108/06) JSE code: JDG NSX code: JDL ISIN: ZAE000030771 (`JD Group`) Acquisition by JD Group of an equity interest in credit recovery management company Blake and Associates Holdings (Proprietary) Limited (`Blake Holdings` or`the Company`) JD Group and the shareholders of Blake Holdings are pleased to announce that they have concluded a transaction whereby JD Group will acquire half of Unifer Holdings Limited`s (a wholly owned subsidiary of ABSA Bank Limited (`ABSA`)) stake in Blake Holdings. Upon fulfillment of all conditions precedent, which arenormal in transactions of this nature, the purchase price of R12 million will besettled in cash. Subsequent to the conclusion of this transaction, JD Group and ABSA will have a combined holding just in excess of 50% in Blake Holdings and management will hold the balance. The transaction brings together South Africa`s leading furniture retailer and credit recovery company in a significant partnership that will allow them to explore the opportunities such an alliance presents. In 2003, JD Group implemented a debtors` management solution developed by Blake Holdings. Subsequent to this transaction, JD Group will transfer the default debtors collection and recovery function from all JD Group chains to Blake Holdings, on an outsourced basis. This will reduce JD Group`s collection costs through economies of scale and the contingency basis on which Blake Holdings operates. This investment in Blake Holdings will provide JD Group with an avenue to leverage off the wealth of expertise that JD Group has in credit granting and credit management. The combined knowledge of JD Group and Blake Holdings will make for a powerful offering to the credit granting sector. In addition to the software and systems related intellectual property that BlakeHoldings own, it has significant call centre operations. Most notable of these is a 1000 seat call centre situated in Durban that utilises the latest call centre technology, in house developed software and two predictive dialer platforms. This call centre provides a scalable platform from which JD Group canleverage its direct marketing initiatives to existing customers. The transaction will not have a material impact on either the headline earnings per share or net asset value per share of JD Group in the current financial year. The transaction is not a `category` transaction in terms of Section 9 of the Listings Requirements of the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa. 12 August 2004 Advisors to the transaction ABSA Corporate & Merchant Bank Corporate Finance Attorneys to the transaction Levy Feinsteins and Associates Incorporated Lead Sponsor Barnard Jacobs Mellet Corporate Finance (Pty) Limited Joint Sponsor PSG Capital Limited Enquiries: JD Group Limited Jan Bezuidenhout, Director Corporate Services Tel: + 27 11 408 0213 Blake Holdings Howard Blake, Chairman Blake Holdings Tel: + 27 31 538 4199 College Hill Angela Parr Sam Denoon-Stevens Tel: + 27 11 447 3030 Date: 12/08/2004 04:38:07 PM Produced by the JSE SENS Department
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