History and background of SVG Capital

SVG Capital was established in May 1996 as a result of an exchange offer made to all investors in Schroder Ventures private equity partnerships for their limited partnership interests in exchange for shares in SVG Capital. 31% by number and 27% by value took up the offer and SVG Capital was listed on the London Stock Exchange with holdings in 23 funds and net assets of £187 million.

SVG Capital has since gone on to commit over £3 billion to private equity and in the six months to 30 June 2008, net assets per share (including the December 2007 Directors' unaudited valuation of SVG Advisers) declined by 12.3%* to 847.8p per share, with fully diluted Shareholders' funds decreasing to 776.3p per share**. Since listing, compound growth in net assets per share has increased by 13.0% p.a., outperforming the FTSE All-Share (capital only) by 9.5% over the same period.

Since its inception, SVG Capital has had a strong relationship with Permira (formerly Schroder Ventures Europe) and has invested in all of the Permira Funds, which have been a key driver of SVG Capital’s net asset growth to date.

SVG Capital is the largest single investor in the Permira Funds, representing over 20% of those funds and the Permira Funds represented 93% of
SVG Capital's net investment portfolio at 30 June 2008.

Relationship with Permira

In March 2005, SVG Capital formalised its relationship with Permira. Permira Capital Limited now holds six million shares in SVG Capital (4.3% of the current issued share capital) and Damon Buffini, Chairman of Permira, sits on the Board. SVG Capital committed €2.8 billion to Permira IV, the most recent Permira fund, raised in 2006.

History and background of SVG Advisers

To compliment its investment objective and create capital and income streams for SVG Capital, in 2001, the Company launched its fund management business, SVG Advisers, with the aim of establishing a business that would focus on creating intelligent solutions for investing in private equity or public equity using private equity techniques.

SVG Advisers has funds and commitments under management of
€4.4 billion***, and now manages eight diversified private equity fund of funds, five public equity funds using private equity techniques, five single manager funds (all investing in Permira funds) and two collaterised loan obligation equity funds.

At 31 December 2007, the board placed an unaudited Directors' valuation of £106.4 million (71.5p per share) on the business and will review the value of the business again in December 2008. For further information on SVG Advisers please visit:

» SVG private equity
» SVG public equity

* Pre dividend of 6.5p paid in May
** Excluding the December 2007 Directors' unaudited valuation of SVG Advisers
*** As at 30 June 2008