Mon, 02 Feb 2004

Triodos Bank launches share issue for fairetrade hot drinks company Cafédirect

Bristol, 2 February (NNA) – The UK office of the Dutch Triodos ethical investment bank has today launched a share issue to raise £5 million to help the UK fair trade pioneer Cafédirect to expand.

“Triodos Bank is delighted to be working with Cafédirect to launch a share issue enabling UK consumers to invest in an even brighter future for this ground-breaking enterprise, its thousands of producer partners and customers,” the bank said on its website in launching the issue.

According to Triodos, the hot drinks company’s recent growth has emerged from the unique relationship built over the last twelve years, between Cafédirect and the million strong coffee, tea and cocoa producers and their families across Central and Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent who supply the company with the finest of their crop and receive enhanced incomes in return.

The current dramatic growth in sales means that the company is now encountering new challenges and opportunities if it is to realise its full potential: “The more customers buy, the more capital is required to support the company’s continued growth, the expansion of its brands and sustain burgeoning consumer demand,” the Triodos website adds.

“By investing in Cafédirect, you will help shape its future. It’s a future that might persuade others to do tomorrow what Cafédirect is doing today. It will also ensure that Cafédirect can reach even more people and make lives better.” Cafédirect managing director Penny Newman said.

The share will not, however, be listed on the main stock exchange but will be unlisted stock traded on the Triodos Ethex ethical exchange. Commenting on the potential difficulty of selling the shares in such a market due to its potential illiquidity and having to match sellers and buyers, Newman told BBC radio: “The people we’re attracting will not be wanting to sell their shares immediately. This is very much about a long-term investment.

“What we’ve built over the thirteen years is a viable trading robust business model built around sustainability – a sustainability we’ve built for producers by giving them a fair price, and we want to do the same for consumers and producers in the share issue.”

Cafédirect Ltd was set up in 1991 in response to the collapse in world coffee prices. Its stated mission is to be the leading brand which strengthens the influence, income and security of producer partners in the South and to link them directly to the consumer.

Today Cafédirect is the UK's leading fairtrade hot drinks company and sixth largest coffee brand in the UK, selling premium quality coffees, teas and drinking chocolate sourced from 33 producer partners groups in 11 countries around the world.

END/cva

Prospectus with application form available at: 0845 600 9662 or www.triodos.co.uk

www.cafedirect.co.uk

Item: N040202-01EN Date: 2 February 2004

Copyright 2004 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/content/