Shareholder alerts

Many companies have become aware that their shareholders have received unsolicited phone calls or correspondence concerning investment matters. These are typically from overseas ‘brokers’ who target shareholders offering to sell them what often turn out to be worthless or high risk shares, generally in US or UK investments.

These callers can be very persistent and extremely persuasive and their activities have resulted in considerable losses for some investors. It is not just the novice investor that has been deceived in this way; many of the victims have been successfully investing for several years. Shareholders are advised to be very wary of any unsolicited advice, offers to buy shares at a discount or offers of free company reports.

If you receive any unsolicited investment advice:

• Make sure you get the correct name of the person and organisation
• Check here that they are properly authorised (for example, in the UK by the FSA) before getting involved
• The FSA also maintains on its website a list of unauthorised overseas firms who are targeting, or have targeted, UK investors and any approach from such organisations should be reported to the FSA so that this list can be kept up to date and any other appropriate action can be considered. The FSA can be contacted by completing an online form here
• If calls persist, hang up

If you deal with an unauthorised firm, you would not be eligible to receive payment under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

More detailed information on this or similar activity can be found here.

Details of any share dealing facilities that the Company endorses will be included in company mailings.

You may also receive unsolicited mail from a variety of commercial organisations who have obtained your address from our publicly available share register. If this is the case, please contact:

The Mailing Preference Service (MPS)
FREEPOST 29 LON20771
London
W1E 0ZT

Tel: 0845 703 4599
Email: mps@dma.org.uk
Register on-line at http://www.mpsonline.org.uk.

Registering with the MPS will stop most unsolicited consumer advertising material.