WILLIAM SINCLAIR HOLDINGS PLC

("William Sinclair", the "Company" or the "Group")

Board Changes and Trading Update

William Sinclair announces the departure of its Chief Executive, appointment of a new Interim Chief Executive, the launch of a transformation programme, and a poor start to the season.

William Sinclair today announces the departure of Peter Rush as Chief Executive and the appointment of Stuart Burgin, 52, as Chief Executive, with immediate effect initially on an interim basis. Stuart is expected to join the Board of the Company in due course.

Peter has worked for the business for 2 years in challenging circumstances and has worked tirelessly to get Ellesmere Port up and running, and to refocus the Company's commercial offering for which the Board would like to register its thanks.

Stuart has a career predominantly in the food industry originally at RHM and Robert McBride and subsequently at Oscar Mayer. He has been the CEO and Managing Director of a number of businesses, and a constant theme in his career has been his strong leadership skills. He is a member of the Institute for Turnaround and has considerable experience in transformation programmes.

William Sinclair has had a difficult season so far. While some progress has been made in the ramp up of production, we are not as well developed as we had expected to be at this stage. We have also seen a slow start to the season with sales to retail and professional customers below last year. There has been margin pressure in both professional and retail sectors. Consequently the Board expects that the result for the year on an underlying basis will be materially worse than last year.

In the light of this the Board has launched a transformation programme that will be developed over the coming weeks but which has already identified and introduced certain action plans. Stuart who has been involved to date in the development of the transformation programme will now lead its further development and implementation, supported by additional experienced manufacturing and business transformation resource that has recently joined the business. Given the strengthening of the resource and the action plans already put in place we are committed to meeting the needs of our retail and professional customers through the peak selling season.

It is our intention to update shareholders on the transformation plan before the end of April. We anticipate that we will by then have a detailed plan to return William Sinclair to sustained profitability and that we will have begun to deliver against the plan.

Appointment of Non-Executive Director

The Company also announces today the appointment of Hugh Cawley, 58, to the Board as Non-Executive Director with immediate effect. Hugh, a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute for Turnaround, has specialised for some years in helping listed and private businesses improve their performance, including latterly Dawson Holdings plc and office2office plc.

The following information is disclosed pursuant to Schedule Two paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies. Hugh is currently the director of More Hours Limited and has also been the director of the following companies in the five years preceding this announcement:

Hugh was a director of Surridge Dawson Limited which went into administration on 6 August 2009 following the Office of Fair Trading Opinion which saw competition in newspaper and magazine distribution reduce from three national players to two.

There are no further disclosures required in accordance with the AIM Rules.

For further information:

William Sinclair Holdings PLC                        Tel:  07802 625731

Rupert King, Chairman

WH Ireland Limited

Andrew Kitchingman                                         Tel:  0113 394 6600

Paul Shackleton                                   

Liam Gribben