Warning to shareholders

Boiler Room fraud and unsolicited communications to shareholders

We are aware that from time to time our shareholders have received unsolicited telephone calls and/or mail which purport to come from Halma or to be authorised by Halma.

We would like to provide reassurance that no employee of Halma would ever contact our shareholders in this way and we would not authorise any other individual or company to do so.

Halma is obliged by law to make its share register publicly available on request and, as a result, it is possible that shareholder address information could be used by third parties to obtain telephone numbers and/or send unsolicited mail.

However, new provisions under the 2006 Companies Act enable us to challenge a request to make the Halma share register available when the reason given for the request is not acceptable to us; we will be taking advantage of these provisions as appropriate.

The practice of Boiler Room fraud has been highlighted by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA), and their warning notice to shareholders is reproduced below. Our registrars, Computershare Investor Services, also have an informative FAQs section on boiler room scams on their Investor Centre website: Computershare boiler room scams FAQs

For further information, please contact:

Carol T Chesney, Company Secretary, Tel +44 (0)1494 721111.

FSA and ICSA guidelines

Over the last year many companies have become aware that their shareholders have received unsolicited phone calls or correspondence concerning investment matters . These are typically from overseas based ‘brokers’ who target UK shareholders offering to sell them what often turn out to be worthless or high risk shares in US or UK investments. They can be very persistent and extremely persuasive and a 2006 survey by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has reported that the average amount lost by investors is around £20,000. It is not just the novice investor that has been duped in this way; many of the victims had been successfully investing for several years. Shareholders are advised to be very wary of any unsolicited advice, offers to buy shares at a discount or offers of free reports into the company.

• If you receive any unsolicited investment advice:
  Make sure you get the correct name of the person and organisation.
• Check that they are properly authorised by the FSA before getting involved. You can check at www.fsa.gov.uk/register
• The FSA also maintains on its website a list of unauthorised overseas firms who are targeting, or have targeted, UK investors and any approach from such organisations should be reported to the FSA so that this list can be kept up to date and any other appropriate action can be considered. If you deal with an unauthorised firm, you would not be eligible to receive payment under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The FSA can be contacted by calling 0845 606 1234 or by completing an online form at www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/doing/regulated/law/alerts/overseas.shtml
• If the calls persist, hang up.

Details of any sharedealing facilities that the company endorses will be included in company mailings.

More detailed information on this or similar activity can be found on the FSA website http://www.fsa.gov.uk/consumer/.