New Shareholders

Prometheus has two new shareholders, Triodos Bank and GLS Gemeinschafts Bank, two of the largest and longest established ethical banks in Europe. We approached these two banks to invite them to support our ongoing growth and development with a substantial injection of capital.

After a period of discussions and their own due diligence processes both Banks became shareholders in Prometheus on 31 March 2008. Each has bought $500,000 in Prometheus shares taking our total capital position (equity plus subordinated debt) to just over $2.1 million.

Prometheus' capital position is an important part of the security for depositor's funds. We are required by our Trust Deed to have sufficient capital such that total liabilities (i.e. mainly deposits but includes some other balance sheet items) not exceed 15 times our total capital. This is broadly equivalent to a standard capital adequacy ratio of 6.6% (the inverse of the above measure i.e 1/15th). Clearly, as total deposits grow we need to increase capital in line with that to continue to meet that ratio requirement.

The key reason Prometheus restructured to become a finance company was to allow us to bring in outside capital as necessary to protect depositor's funds and meet this ratio requirement as our balance sheet grew. We sought this extra capital to allow Prometheus to continue to grow substantially over the next 2-5 years.

Following this capital injection we now have a capital adequacy ratio of 13.5%, substantially above the implicit requirement of 6.6% set by our Trust Deed. This means that we can double our total deposits over the next few years and still remain compliant with that ratio.

This gives Prometheus a solid foundation for the growth we are aiming for.