Re Joint Venture

PipeHawk PLC 4 March 2002 Re Joint Venture PipeHawk plc is pleased to announce the signing of a formal agreement setting up SUMO, a new franchise operation offering an underground utility detection service to utility companies, construction companies and home-owners planning extensions or other major projects. The agreement, foreshadowed in the latest annual report, establishes SUMO as a joint venture operation between PipeHawk, Geotec Surveys and Franchise Concepts Ltd, with each partner holding a one-third interest. Geotec is a leading underground survey and mapping company, while Franchise Concepts is a business development specialist. The SUMO franchise will offer PipeHawk's unique Ground Penetrating (GPR) technology alongside radio frequency locators, a fibre optic tracing system and more traditional methods such as metal detection. PipeHawk Managing Director Mike Bushell said: 'Users of SUMO are expected to include utility and construction companies that need the reassurance of professional utility detection, as well as home-owners seeking to limit the risk and cost of disruptive damage during the construction of extensions, swimming pools or landscaping.' PipeHawk's GPR technology has been developed to detect all underground objects, including plastic pipes and fibre optic cables. Uniquely, it utilises software that presents data in an easily viewable form, thus removing the need for expert interpretation, so that it can be used with minimal training. Operating from strikingly branded vans in black and yellow livery, SUMO is currently being piloted in the South East. The franchise partners plan to set up at least six more franchises elsewhere in the UK by October, with a planned rollout of 100 over the next three years. Franchise holders will be expected to have appropriate backgrounds in the utility and construction industries. For further information contact: Mike Bushell, Managing Director, PipeHawk plc: 01420 590990 Allan Piper, Blackstone Business Communications: 020 7251 2544 07050 203304 John Finn or Sam Smith, J M Finn & Co: 020 7860 6352 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange