LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Corporate and institutional finance specialist Alpha Group announced the formal launch of a new sales office in Bristol on Thursday, along with a related share scheme.
The AIM-traded firm said its Bristol office was initially established in January last year, to focus on providing Alpha's existing offering to smaller UK corporates with turnovers of £5m to £30m, compared to those the group had historically served.

It said the Bristol operation has a sales team that leverages the existing operations and infrastructure of the group's foreign exchange risk management (FXRM) division in the same manner as its FXRM offices in Amsterdam, Milan and Toronto.

In a bid to incentivise the key personnel within the Bristol operation, the group said it was putting in place an employee share ownership scheme for certain individuals.

A new class of 'I' shares in Alpha FX Limited was being created, with 79% owned by the group and 21% owned by the remaining Bristol participants.

The value of the I shares would be linked to the performance of the Bristol operation.

Alpha Group said the Bristol share ownership scheme was being structured in a similar way to the share schemes implemented for other foreign exchange risk management divisions in Canada and the Netherlands.

From March 2025, the Bristol participants would have the option to convert 25% of their holding of I shares into ordinary shares each year for four years, with the final option being exercisable in March 2028.

The value of the shares on conversion would be based on an 8x multiple of the operation's annual profit after tax, and thus was is designed to be accretive on an earnings per share basis for group shareholders so long as Alpha's valuation stayed in excess of an 8x multiple of earnings, and group earnings continued to grow sufficiently.

"The opportunity to apply Alpha's principles of currency risk management and powerful capabilities to UK small-to-medium enterprises is an attractive one," said chief executive officer Morgan Tillbrook.

"Whether you're a £5m company or a £500m company, the impact of currency volatility is felt in the same way, but unfortunately smaller businesses often remain the most overlooked when it comes to strategic support.

"It's also a pleasure to see another long-standing member of the team, Luc Barford, leading this division."

At 1444 GMT, shares in Alpha Group International were down 2.76% at 1,750.25p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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