Corcel PLC

("Corcel" or the "Company")

Options Issuance and Directors Dealings

12 January 2024

Corcel plc, (London AIM: CRCL), the Angolan focused exploration and production company, announces an award of options to Senior Executives and Board members. 

Corcel Executive Chairman, Antoine Karam, commented: "Fully consistent with our stated intentions, this package of options allows us to attract, retain and ultimately compensate the high-quality executive team and Board we have worked to assemble, while aligning the majority of their compensation with the performance of the underlying business.

We hope investors will recognize the aggressive, yet we believe achievable, performance metrics that once met, will unlock these options over the years to come.  With our new Board and their compensation structure now largely in place, we turn our attention back to the execution of our onshore strategy in Angola as we enter the New Year."

Options Award and Directors' Dealings:

The Company announces the grant of 307,033,155 five-year options to Directors and key Executives, 15,745,290 of which fall under the Company's existing Enterprise Management Scheme. 

Each option entitles the holder upon exercise to one ordinary share of £0.0001 of the Company at a strike price of par, vesting after the stock trades for at least 5 trading days at a series of prices ranging from £0.016 to £0.064; between a 4x and 16x uplift from the Company's latest funding round of £0.004.  One third of the options issued will vest in each year following grant, and both the time in service and the share price trading metrics must be attained in order for the options to fully vest. 

Pursuant to the recommendation of the Remuneration Committee, the Board has awarded the following options:

Following this grant of options, the resultant Directors' shareholdings are as follows:

Related Party Disclosure

This transaction is a related party transaction pursuant to Rule 13 of the AIM Rules.  As such, the Directors being issued options have not been involved in the approval of the Transaction by the Company's Board. 

The Directors of the Company independent of the Transaction, Yan Zhou and Andrew Fairclough, having consulted with the Company's nominated advisor, WH Ireland Ltd, consider the terms of the Transaction to be fair and reasonable insofar as the Company's shareholders are concerned. 

The person responsible for arranging the release of this announcement on behalf of Corcel is Andrew Fairclough.

For further information, please contact:

Antoine Karam                                                                                    Corcel Plc Executive Chairman

[email protected]                                                                                   

James Joyce / James Bavister /Andrew de Andrade                    WH Ireland Ltd NOMAD & Broker

0207 220 1666                                                                                        

Patrick d'Ancona                                                                                Vigo Communications IR

0207 3900 230                                                                                      

The information contained within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 which is part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (withdrawal) Act 2018. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

NOTIFICATION AND PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF TRANSACTIONS BY PERSONS DISCHARGING MANAGERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES AND PERSONS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH THEM