Countrywide Farmers plc, the farming & rural supplies business formed in July 1999 as a result of the merger of Midland Shires Farmers Limited (MSF) and WMF Limited, announces that its shares are to be traded on ShareMark, the market designed for small to medium-sized companies, from 18th April 2006.
Announcing the arrangement, John Hardman, Managing Director for Countrywide Farmers said, "We are delighted to be joining ShareMark. It will enable our
existing shareholders to trade shares simply and efficiently and we hope that it will to introduce some new shareholders. We are committed to meeting the needs of our shareholders and we are sure that joining ShareMark will
underline that message".
Emma Vigus, Head of ShareMark added, "The agricultural sector is becoming increasingly important for ShareMark and we hope to see more companies from
the sector joining later this year. It's also interesting to note the growing popularity of ShareMark amongst co-operatives and ex co-operatives and this is almost certainly due to ShareMark's flexibility, which allows us to restrict trading to a pre-defined audience and report buy orders to the Company before processing them. Countrywide Farmers has completed the ShareMark admission process in just over a month, which disproves the myth that putting in place a share trading facility is costly and time consuming."
Countrywide Farmers has been advised on its admission by Richard Cobb, corporate finance partner at commercial law firm Bond Pearce, who said:
"Sharemark is ideal for companies with a high number of shareholders but less liquidity and the simple admission process means we have been able to work with Countrywide's directors on finalising the details very quickly."
The first auction of Countrywide Farmers shares will take place on Friday 28th April, with monthly auctions thereafter. The Company will join ShareMark with a market capitalisation of £9.6m and currently has over 11000
shareholders.
