PayPoint Plc ("PayPoint" or the “Company”), a leading branded payment collection network, today announces the offer price in connection with the Company’s listing on the London Stock Exchange, by way of an institutional Placing, of 192 pence per share.

Summary of the offer:

• Placing of 15,694,809 ordinary shares by selling shareholders, representing 23 per cent of the Company’s enlarged and issued share capital and corresponding to a total offer size of £30.1 million.  No new ordinary shares are to be offered by the Company.
• Based on the offer price of 192 pence per share and the number of shares in issue of 67,465,794 the market capitalisation of the Company at listing will be approximately £129.5 million.
• Conditional dealings will commence at 8am on 21 September 2004 on the London Stock Exchange.  It is expected that the listing will become effective and unconditional dealings will commence at 8am on 24 September under the ticker symbol PAY.
• Cazenove & Co Ltd (“Cazenove”) acted as sole financial adviser and Cazenove and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein acted as joint sponsors and bookrunners for the Placing.

Summary of Business:

• PayPoint operates a leading branded payment collection network used primarily for the cash payments of bills and services and prepayments for mobile telephones and energy meters.
• Approximately 14,300 outlets use PayPoint’s collection systems.  Multiple Retail Agents account for about half of PayPoint's Retail Agency network including selected Co-op, One Stop, Spar, Londis, Costcutter, Texaco and Somerfield outlets or stores.
• For the financial year ended 31st March 2004, PayPoint processed over 204 million payments, with a value of approximately £2.3 billion.  This generated operating profit before depreciation and amortisation of £8.1 million on gross revenue of £67.1 million.
• The Board believes PayPoint is the market leader in energy pre-payments and has an increasing share of cash bill payments. In the energy sector, PayPoint provides a cash payment network for all the UK and Ireland’s major energy suppliers.
• PayPoint collects cash payments for all of the five major mobile telephone networks in the UK (Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile and Virgin) and for new mobile telephone network market entrants such as Tesco Mobile and ‘3’ as well as for all three Irish mobile telephone networks. 
• PayPoint also collects cash payments for a number of other types of household bills including water, housing rentals, council tax, television licensing, fixed line telephone, cable television and others.
• The Board believes that over 95 per cent of UK households are situated within one mile in urban areas, or five miles in rural areas, of a PayPoint Retail Agent.
• PayPoint is the retail collection channel for Transport for London’s (“TfL”) congestion charge scheme handling approximately 30 per cent of all daily Congestion Charge payments.
• PayPoint has recently joined LINK as an independent ATM deployer.  PayPoint’s ATM service was launched in August 2003 and has grown by on average approximately 50 installed machines per month to 601 as at 31 August 2004.

Board Appointments

• PayPoint has appointed Kenneth Minton, Andrew Robb and Roger Wood as Non-executive Directors and George Earle as Finance Director.

Dominic Taylor, Chief Executive of PayPoint, said: "The flotation of PayPoint is an exciting milestone for the company, its staff and shareholders.  We have created a powerful brand in the field of cash payment collection.  As a public company, we believe that we will have an enhanced platform to grow and develop our business further, attract new customers, and retain and motivate the employees at PayPoint."
David Newlands, Chairman of PayPoint, added: "Since PayPoint began trading in 1996 it has built a business of over 400 clients, 14,300 outlets and over £2 billion of payments collected per year.  This has been a very strong performance and I am confident that following the IPO, PayPoint will go from strength to strength."

For further information:
PayPoint    01707 600317
David Newlands
Dominic Taylor

Finsbury Group    020 7251 3801
Rollo Head
James Leviton
Don Hunter

Cazenove    020 7588 2828
Nick Wiles
Nick Garrett
Graham Bird