Axon creates groundbreaking Partnership Program for senior executives. Founders transfer 4.9 million shares to Executive Reward Scheme                                                                                                    03/3/2005

Three founding shareholders of Axon have agreed to transfer a total of 4,900,000 shares to a scheme to reward key management for increasing shareholder value by 150% or more over the next three years.

Mark Hunter, Donald Kirkwood and Paul Manweiler will create an Executive Reward Scheme (ERS) into which they will each transfer 27.5% of their existing shareholding. The move - involving 10% of Axon's issued share capital - is believed to be unprecedented in a London listed company.

Three founding shareholders of Axon have agreed to transfer a total of 4,900,000 shares to a scheme to reward key management for increasing shareholder value by 150% or more over the next three years.

"When we founded Axon 10 years ago, we were driven by a passion for excellence and an ambition to prove we could beat the competition," said Mark Hunter, Axon CEO, "But we were also well aware that success could have some very real and positive financial consequences for us as founders".

"We have reached the end of the beginning at Axon. We have 10 years of profitable growth behind us. We have operations throughout the world. We lead the field in our chosen market. Now we are ready for the next phase of growth and we need to show the up and coming management team that exceptional corporate performance can and will deliver exceptional individual rewards to the leaders who take us there."

A significant number of private options will be granted to current Axon employees at an exercise price up to 20% higher than current share price. These options may be exercised in three years time, provided that the share price has grown in excess of 150%, creating a total pretax benefit of over £15 million. The ERS will have a further number of share options available to current and new employees and similar rules will apply. There are no limits to the amount of options that can be granted to an individual executive under the scheme.

Axon also announces its intention to buy shares in the market up to 5% of the issued share capital of the company in order to fund an Employee Benefit Trust (EBT). The EBT will give high performance Axon staff the opportunity to take leveraged performance shares in part replacement of their existing bonus scheme.