Investment

RNS Number:0651N
Griffin Group PLC
02 June 2005


For immediate release
                                                                     2 June 2005

                 Griffin Group plc ("Griffin" or the "Company")

                   Further investment in Tower plc ("Tower")

The Board of Tower announced today that, subject to shareholder approval,
agreement has been reached for the proposed acquisition by Tower of Maskina AS
("Maskina") and that Tower intended to raise #1,800,000, before expenses, by way
of a placing, open offer and subscription of 60,000,000 new Tower ordinary
shares of 1p each ("New Tower Shares") at a price of 3p per share (the "Maskina
Acquisition").

Griffin has agreed to subscribe pursuant to the placing for 16,666,667 New Tower
Shares for a total cost of #500,000. Griffin has also agreed to sub-underwrite
10,000,000 New Tower Shares being issued pursuant to the open offer for a
further payment of up to #300,000. Griffin has further agreed to acquire
43,228,008 New Tower Shares from certain vendors of Maskina on completion of the
Maskina Acquisition for a consideration of US$767,500. On completion of the
acquisition of the Maskina Acquisition, Griffin will be interested in 67,928,008
Tower ordinary shares representing 17.29 per cent. of the enlarged share capital
of Tower.

Tower was first established by Griffin Securities, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Griffin, as an investment company and its ordinary shares were admitted to
trading on AIM on 24 September 2004. The directors' of Tower's aim was to make
acquisitions or investments as soon as a suitable target business had been
identified and terms agreed.

On 3 December 2004, the board of Tower announced that it had entered into an
agreement to provide a secured loan of up to #1,048,000 to Maskina, a US and
European voice and data communications company. Maskina commenced trading at the
beginning of 2004 and has offices in Norway, Iceland and the USA. Maskina
provides low-cost voice and data services for fixed line and mobile customers
utilising its own communication facilities, handset-based technology and voice
over Internet protocol solutions. By an agreement dated 2 December 2004, as
amended by a deed of variation, Tower was granted an option to acquire the
entire issued share capital of Maskina, exercisable at any time up to and
including 2 August 2005. On 25 February 2005 the board of Tower announced that,
subject to the satisfactory outcome of the due diligence exercise the board of
Tower intended to exercise the option.

The board of Tower has now decided to exercise the option and Tower has entered
into the acquisition agreement with the vendors of Maskina, which is conditional
on Tower shareholder approval. Following completion of the Maskina Acquisition
the board of Tower's proposed strategy is to build a group providing low cost
voice and data and added value telephone services to fixed line and mobile users
principally in the US and Europe.

The Maskina Acquisition constitutes a "reverse take-over" under the AIM Rules
and is therefore subject to the approval of Tower shareholders being given at an
extraordinary general meeting of Tower on 27 June 2005.

Contacts:

Stephen Dean, Griffin Group plc                           Tel: 00 34 605 282 211

Roland Cornish, Michael Cornish, Beaumont Cornish Limited Tel: 0207 628 3396

ENDS


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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