MERGER CREATES NEW FORCE IN SCIENCE-BASED COMMUNICATIONS

STMP Marketing Solutions and Charles Consultants merge to form
Northbank Communications. Pembridge Partners LLP invests and takes board seat

26th November 2002. London & Manchester (UK), Munich (Germany). STMP Marketing Solutions Ltd and Charles Consultants today announce their merger to form Northbank Communications (“Northbank”), a fully integrated communications consultancy focusing specifically on science-based sectors such as the biotech industry. As part of the merger, Northbank has attracted investment and ongoing support from Pembridge Partners LLP, the creative services venture firm, who invest alongside Northbank’s founders, Peter Colley, Susan Charles and Katja Stout.

Northbank is focused on creating a global communications group to serve the specialist needs of science-based industries. Its services include consulting, corporate and financial PR and marketing communications, backed up by an in-house design studio.

Commenting on the merger, Northbank’s CEO, Sue Charles said:

“In the life sciences sector clients need to access a wide range of specialist skills including science communications, corporate communications, financial PR/IR and issue management. In addition, whether clients are raising finance or have products and services to commercialise, they all need specialist marketing and design support. The merger creates a strong team with skills across all of these disciplines”.

Northbank has a combined client list of over 50 organisations, mostly in the UK and Europe. These include Oxford BioMedica plc, Ribotargets Ltd, Morphochem AG, Solexa Ltd, The Automation Partnership Ltd, Cambridge Antibody Technology plc and various members of the Thermo Group of companies. To serve these clients Northbank operates from UK offices in London and Congleton (just south of Manchester), as well as a subsidiary office in Munich.

Charles, previously founder and CEO of HCC De Facto and famous for her PR launch of Dolly the Sheep, will be joined on the board of Northbank by Peter Colley, founder of STMP and Mark Adams, as Pembridge representative, previously director and co-founder of Text 100 and now partner and co-founder of Pembridge.

Commenting on their investment, Otto Stevens, the Partner at Pembridge that lead the transaction said:

“We were impressed by the founding team at Northbank and their focus on building a global force in science-based communications. Pembridge is building a network of strong, independent creative service firms and Northbank fit the criteria we seek in our portfolio companies”.

The company’s growth strategy is aggressive and will combine organic growth with international acquisitions. “We are delighted to have the added skills, contacts and resources that Pembridge brings” comments Charles, adding “With regards to future growth, we will particularly target countries that have strong science-based industries such as UK, Germany, Sweden, France and US”.

Further information at the new web site: www.northbankcommunications.com

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For further information please contact:

At Northbank Communications

Sue Charles, CEO                 +44 (0)20 7321 3872            s.charles@northbankcommunications.com 

Peter Colley, Director                        +44 (0)1260 296500            p.colley@northbankcommunications.com 

At Pembridge

Mark Adams, Partner             +44 (0)20 7208 7288            mark.adams@pembridge.net  

Otto Stevens, Partner             +44 (0)20 7208 7288            otto.stevens@pembridge.net 

1.         Northbank Communications Ltd - www.northbankcommunications.com

Northbank Communications has been formed through the merger of Charles Consultants into STMP Marketing Solutions Ltd. A fully integrated PR and communications firm, the consultancy operates from offices in London and Congleton (near Manchester) in the UK and Munich Germany.

The consultancy focuses on serving science-based companies and organisations, with a strong focus in the life science industry. Northbank helps early stage companies establish a corporate presence through PR, image development, website design and corporate materials as well as value adding services including business plan writing and investor presentations. For more mature companies the consultancy can offer a range of dedicated services or integrated campaigns, focused on either marketing or financial audiences. The consultancy has a fully equipped design studio offering on- and off- line design solutions, based at its Congleton office.

Immediately post merger the consultancy employs 19 staff with an annualised turnover in excess £1m (€1.5m).

2.         STMP Marketing Solutions Ltd

STMP was initially formed in 1991 as STM Ltd by Peter Colley. During its 11 years of operations STMP has served over 200 companies in the life science and laboratory science industries across Europe.

3.         Charles Consultants

Charles Consultants was founded in April 2002 by Susan Charles and Katja Stout. In the eight months since formation, the consultancy has attracted 17 clients in the UK, Germany and US.

4.         Northbank Communications founder Bio’s

Susan Charles, CEO of Northbank Communications and co-founder of Charles Consultants:

Sue combines a first class Biochemistry degree from Oxford with an MBA, scientific research experience and over 17 years communications and consulting experience in the life science field. She was responsible for the media campaign that launched Dolly the Sheep in 1996 and responsible the PR/IR for Cambridge Antibody Technology, when it was the best performing equity on the FTSE in 2000. She also won and steered the £10m DTI Biotechnology Means Business Initiative. She co-founded De Facto Consultants in 1991 (biotechnology PR) and Genus Communications in 1994 (financial PR), and orchestrated a merger of these consultancies with Hayhurst Conington Cripps in 1998 to form HCC De Facto Group. As CEO, she established HCC De Facto as a leader in the life science field, with a turnover of £5m+ by 2001. She left HCC De Facto in 2001 to pursue a role as interim CEO of a start up Biotech Company, gaining invaluable experience of the early-stage financing process, before co-founding Charles Consultants in 2002.

Peter Colley, Director of Northbank Communications and founder of STMP Marketing Solutions Ltd: Peter gained extensive international sales, marketing and management experience with analytical instrument companies including LDC/Milton Roy (now part of the Thermo Group of Companies), Bruker and Applied BioSystems, largely servicing pharmaceutical and life science customers. Since founding STM in 1991 and STMP in 1999, he has helped many life sciences clients grow their businesses and market presence through planning and implementing successful marketing and communications strategies. Working closely with senior managers and the board, clients appreciate Peter’s breadth and depth of industry knowledge and his ability to quickly grasp, prioritise and simplify key messages and communicate these to investor, partner and customer audiences.

Katja Stout, Associate Director of Northbank Communications and co-founder of Charles Consultants: Katja has seven years wide ranging and international experience in the life science sector. She graduated in Biochemistry from Oxford going on to gain PR experience in consultancies in London and San Francisco as well as in house at Genset, Paris and with venture capital groups Merlin Biosciences and Schroder Ventures Life Sciences, before co-founding Charles Consultants in 2002. Katja has an extensive network of industry and media contacts, and combines her communication skills with an in depth understanding of the sector and fund raising processes. She is bilingual in Finnish and English.

5.         Pembridge Partners LLP - www.pembridge.net

Pembridge has developed an original formula to help creative service firms achieve commercial success and to maximise profitability and shareholder value. The partnership comprises senior players from the finance, advertising, music, film, TV, PR and marketing sectors and each portfolio company has access to the deep, broad sector knowledge and experience of all nine partners.

Pembridge works with creative service firms and designs tailor-made programmes: acting as an investor, helping companies grow through strategic and M&A advice as well as streamlining businesses through IT, HR and finance support. In each case Pembridge’s long-term involvement is assured through their taking a minority stake and enables the portfolio company to keep control of its own business, focus on staying at the forefront of creativity and, most importantly, remain independent.