ULTP Ultimate Products Plc

29 November 2024

Ultimate Products plc

("Ultimate Products", the "Company" or the "Group")

Grant of Options under the Employee Share Scheme

               Exercise of Options, PDMR dealing and EBT Shareholding

Ultimate Products, the owner of a number of leading homeware brands including Salter (the UK's oldest houseware brand, est.1760) and Beldray (est.1872), announces the following grant of deferred share awards, exercise of options and certain PDMR dealings as a consequence of the grants and exercises.

Deferred Bonus Awards

Following the release of its final results for the year ended 31 July 2024, the Group, on 27 November 2024, granted deferred share awards in the form of options over 210,963 ordinary shares in the Company (the "UPIP Options"), of which 76,908 UPIP Options were awarded to certain persons discharging managerial responsibilities ("PDMR") (as set out in the table below). The UPIP Options have been granted under the rules of the Company's Incentive Plan (the "UPIP"), adopted following the Company's annual general meeting in 2023. The UPIP Options have been granted to retain and incentivise certain members of senior management. As in previous periods, Andrew Gossage, CEO, and Simon Showman, Founder and CCO, are not participating in any grant of options under the UPIP. As the Group did not deliver its target level of performance, no awards have been made to Chris Dent, CFO.

Exercise of Options

On 27 November 2024, under the Company's UP Global Sourcing Performance Share Plan 2017 (the "Plan"), 72,916 share options were exercised at a price of 0.25 pence per option, 62,759 share options were exercised at a price of 59.17 pence per option, 10,516 share options were exercised at a price of 98.87 pence per option and were satisfied by the transfer of, in aggregate, 144,341 ordinary shares held by the UP Global Sourcing Employee Benefit Trust (the "EBT"). Of the 144,341 ordinary shares allocated from the EBT to satisfy the option exercises, 101,851 ordinary shares were subsequently sold in the market at a price of 117.5 pence per ordinary share.

PDMR dealing

Pursuant to the exercise of the Plan options, Duncan Singleton, a PDMR, exercised options over, in aggregate, 21,071 ordinary shares and of those options exercised, subsequently sold, in aggregate, 11,647 ordinary shares.

Further details of the PDMRs' dealings are disclosed in the tables set out below.

EBT and Issued Share Capital

Following the above transactions, the EBT holds 2,370,359 ordinary shares, representing approximately 2.7% of the Company's issued share capital.

The current issued share capital of the Company remains 87,929,063 ordinary shares. This figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in the Company, under the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules of the FCA.

For more information, please contact:

Ultimate Products +44 (0) 161 627 1400

Andrew Gossage, CEO

Chris Dent, CFO

Shore Capital +44 (0) 20 7408 4090

Malachy McEntyre (Corporate Broking)

Isobel Jones (Corporate Broking)

Mark Percy (Corporate Advisory)

David Coaten (Corporate Advisory)
Harry Davies-Ball (Corporate Advisory)

Cavendish Capital Markets Limited + 44 (0)20 7220 0500

Carl Holmes (Corporate Finance)

Matt Goode (Corporate Finance)

Abigail Kelly (Corporate Finance)

Charlie Combe (ECM)

Sodali & Co +44 (0) 207 250 1446

Rob Greening

Sam Austrums

Oliver Banks

Notes to Editors

Ultimate Products is the owner of a number of leading homeware brands including Salter (the UK's oldest houseware brand, established in 1760) and Beldray (a laundry, floor care, heating and cooling brand that was established in 1872). According to its market research, nearly 80% of UK households own at least one of the Group's products.

Ultimate Products sells to over 300 retailers across 45 countries, and specialises in five product categories: Small Domestic Appliances; Housewares; Laundry; Audio; and Heating and Cooling. Other brands include Progress (cookware and bakeware), Kleeneze (laundry and floorcare), Petra (small domestic appliances) and Intempo (audio).

The Group's products are sold to a broad cross-section of both large national and international multi-channel retailers as well as smaller national retail chains, incorporating discount retailers, supermarkets, general retailers and online retailers.

Founded in 1997, Ultimate Products employs over 370 staff, a significant number of whom have joined via the Group's graduate development scheme, and is headquartered in Oldham, Greater Manchester, where it has design, sales, marketing, buying, quality assurance, support functions and warehouse facilities across two sites. Manor Mill, the Group's head office, includes a spectacular 20,000 sq ft showroom that showcases each of its brands. In addition, the Group has an office and showroom in Guangzhou, China and in Paris, France.

Please note that Ultimate Products is not the owner of Russell Hobbs. The company currently has licence agreements in place granting it an exclusive licence to use the "Russell Hobbs" trademark for cookware and laundry (NB this does not include Russell Hobbs electrical appliances).

For further information, please visit www.upplc.com .  

Pursuant to the notification obligations in accordance with Article 19 of the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR)