Partnership Agreement with Darwin Strategic

WH Ireland Group plc

(“WH Ireland” or the “Company”)

WH Ireland Enters Long-Term Partnership Agreement with Darwin Strategic

WH Ireland, a leading stockbroking, wealth management and corporate finance services group, is pleased to announce that it has formally entered into a Partnership Agreement with Darwin Strategic (“Darwin”).

The partnership will allow WH Ireland to offer Darwin’s specialist capital-raising product, the Equity Financing Facility (“EFF”), to its clients.  Darwin’s EFF has proven to provide growth companies on AIM with long-term access to capital while minimising dilution to shareholders.

Darwin is a majority-owned subsidiary of Henderson Global Investors’ Volantis Capital (“Henderson Volantis”), a UK institutional Investor managing US$1.5 billion of assets.

Darwin and Henderson Volantis have an excellent track record having successfully completed over £120 million EFF transactions on AIM over the past year.

Richard Killingbeck, CEO of WH Ireland, said: “Adding the EFF to our client offering unlocks a new source of capital available to our corporate clients and enables us to provide them with a more integrated financing platform.  We are pleased to have partnered with Darwin as their EFF has proven to be an efficient and successful capital raising product.”

Anand Sambasivan, CEO of Darwin Strategic, said: “This partnership builds on our strategy to work with the foremost AIM intermediaries to provide an efficient funding solution to growth companies in a difficult capital raising environment.

“WH Ireland is a leading financial services company on AIM and we look forward to working with them to maximise the benefits of EFF financing to its clients.”

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Notes to Editors:

About WH Ireland

WH Ireland provides a range of stockbroking, wealth and investment management and corporate finance solutions to individuals, their families and companies. We are one of the few remaining UK firms of our size to offer this full suite of services. In AIM market we’re now the third largest adviser by reference to Nomad/broker relationships.

We can trace our roots back to 1872 as Manchester based stockbrokers and as we have expanded our office locations to London and to the other leading financial centres across the UK we have developed a regional presence which is important to us, strengthening our network of clients and relationships.

About Darwin Strategic

Darwin Strategic works in conjunction with parent fund, Henderson’s Volantis Capital, to address the scarcity of funding alternatives available to high growth companies.  Darwin Strategic provides funds via a range of equity and equity-linked investments and seeks to create long-term financing partnerships with companies and its advisors.  Darwin has completed over £200m EFF transaction on AIM to date.