Baqus Group acquires Sworn King and Partners

Baqus boosts its share of the education and public sector market through the acquisition of Sworn King for a maximum consideration of £377,000.

Baqus, the building consultancy and quantity surveying group, announces that it has today acquired Sworn King & Partners (“Sworn King”) for a maximum consideration of £377,000 of which £50,000 is deferred over a period of two years and £162,000 is subject to Sworn King achieving certain profit targets over a three year period. The initial consideration has been satisfied through a cash payment and the issue of 750,000 new ordinary shares in Baqus at 6p per share.

Sworn King was established in the 1950's as Sworn Litchfield and Partners with an office in High Wycombe. The firm opened an Oxford office in the early 1960's and changed the name to Sworn King & Partners. In the 1990's they consolidated into a single office situated on the Oxford ring road. Projects vary in size from small domestic schemes to multi-million pound developments. The practice operates a Quality Management system to ISO9001:2000 and has been certified for Quality Assurance since April 1998.

In the year ended 31 March 2008 Sworn King reported unaudited turnover of £798,730 and a profit before tax and after notional partners’ remuneration of £129,682. Unaudited net assets were £155,592.

Clive Sayer, the Baqus Chief Executive, commented:

“Sworn King has an excellent reputation in the education and the public sector markets, which were two key areas we highlighted in our expansion plans and I am delighted to welcome Sworn King to the Baqus Group.

Following the share option agreement with Brian Hannaby & Associates, this is our first completed acquisition since floating on AIM. We continue to have active discussions with a number of other practices with a view to them joining the Baqus Group.”

The Company will make application for the 750,000 new ordinary shares to be issued to be admitted to trading on AIM, and their admission to AIM is expected to take effect on 8 August 2008.

Following the admission of the 750,000 new ordinary shares, the total number of ordinary shares in issue, and therefore, the total number of voting rights will be 113,250,000. Shareholders should use this figure as the denominator by which to determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, Baqus under the Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

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