Centralnic Group PLC : Board Appointment

CentralNic Group plc

("CentralNic" or "the Company" or "the Group")

Board Appointment

CentralNic (AIM: CNIC), the internet platform business which derives revenues from the worldwide distribution of internet domain names, today announces the appointment of Glenn Hayward as Chief Financial Officer of the Company; Mr Hayward will be taking up his position upon completion of working a notice period at his current employer and a further announcement will be made once he commences employment at the Company.

Glenn brings to CentralNic over 20 years' experience across a variety of sectors with particular experience working with technology companies and in the domain name industry. During his time as Divisional Finance Director at Northgate IS plc, Glenn worked with colleagues to create and deliver a successful growth strategy, including a number of corporate acquisitions.  Most recently Glenn worked as Executive Director, Business Development and Finance, for Nominet, the organisation which manages the .uk internet domain, where he was the Responsible Officer for financial matters working alongside the Board and Audit Committee.  In his role at Nominet, Glenn led and developed the finance and business analysis teams, and was a member of Nominet's Board. Glenn also fulfilled a business development role with responsibility for Nominet's gTLD program.  Nominet has a turnover of £26 million with 130 employees.

Glenn started his career at Morris & Co Chartered Accountants where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1998. He went on to hold positions at Arthur Andersen, Psion Computers PLC and EasyJet plc, where he was Group Business Analysis Manager, leading Director and  Senior Manager Finance Forums for the FTSE listed European airline group. He was winner of "FD of the Future" at the UK's FD Excellence Awards in 2011 and holds the Institute of Directors Diploma in Company Direction.

Ben Crawford, Chief Executive Officer, CentralNic plc commented: "The Board is delighted to appoint Glenn in this role. He is a very dynamic, talented and highly regarded Executive in the domain industry and his appointment comes at an exciting time for the Company.  We are confident that his knowledge and experience, particularly with domain names through his successes at Nominet, will be invaluable as the Company seeks to expand and build upon its recent admission to AIM in September 2013. The internet is about to undergo the most  significant changes since its inception, with the introduction of new top level domains. CentralNic is well positioned to capitalise on this opportunity, and we have a fantastic team to execute our strategy."

Donald Baladasan current Interim Chief Financial Officer, CentralNic plc, will be stepping down from his role after a short handover period. The Board is pleased that Donald's expertise will be available to the Group in a consultancy basis going forward.

This announcement sets out the disclosures required pursuant to Schedule 2, paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies.

-Ends-

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About CentralNic Group plc

·    CentralNic (LSE: CNIC) is a leading provider of registry services to the global market for domain names and is headquartered in London. The Company has developed a proprietary platform for powering and distributing domain names, and is the exclusive global distributor for domains using 55 different domain extensions. These include .la (for domains such as http://intel.la), .uk.com (for domains such as http://avon.uk.com), and .us.com (for domains such as http://activia.us.com)

·    CentralNic's distribution network includes 1500 registrars - entities such as GoDaddy and Network Solutions in over 80 countries that retail domain names directly to the public and wholesale them through an additional network of over 100,000 resellers. End users register these domain names as an address for their websites, as a defensive measure to protect their brands online, as a method of capturing internet traffic and achieving desired rankings on search engines, and as an investment.

·    CentralNic distributes domains on behalf of their clients - owners or rights-holders - on a revenue share basis. CentralNic-distributed domains use an annual registration fee model, paid in advance by the end users, providing a predictable annuity revenue stream for both CentralNic and its clients.

·    CentralNic was selected as the Registry Service Provider and distributor for over 60 applications for new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) - a program devised by the domain industry regulator ICANN to supplement the existing TLDs such as .com and .co.uk with new domain extensions in the most significant change to the internet since its inception. Thirty-one of CentralNic's clients' applications for new TLDs have passed Initial evaluation and collision risk assessment by ICANN, and are uncontested, and therefore will be exclusively powered by CentralNic when they launch. CentralNic will also be distributing additional TLDs from a further list of 25 that have passed initial evaluation and are currently in the process risk assessment and/or contestation resolution, including .app, .art, .blog, .law, .llc, .mail, .news, and school.

·    CentralNic's clients acquiring and funding these new TLDs include a number of successful entrepreneurs as well as Global 1000 companies such as Saudi Telecom, Qatar Telecom, Etisalat and Kuwait Finance House, and media and entertainment industry leaders The Guardian and William Morris Endeavor.

·     CentralNic is itself the rights holder for 24 domain extensions, including .us.com, .eu.com, .uk.com, .ru.com and .cn.com. It therefore retains 100% of the wholesale revenues for domains using those domain extensions.

·    CentralNic is the owner of a portfolio of premium domain names including 18 two-letter .com domains includinghttp://us.comandhttp://uk.com.

·    In addition to its growth as a global distributor of domain names, the Directors believe that there is potential for CentralNic to also become a significant retailer of domain names direct to end users, and CentralNic has already obtained the necessary accreditations, built the technology, signed initial contracts and commenced trading as a domain name retailer.