Earnings of NOK 10 million in Q1 - and significantly more to come in Q2

* Operations improved by NOK 25 million from Q1 2010                   
* Successful share issue in a secondary private equity fund with NOK 500 million
* 28 per cent of client equity invested through Portfolio account
* Proposed dividend of NOK 0.10 per share, shares will trade ex-dividend as of 26 May 2011
                                    
The Acta Group had operating earnings of NOK 10 million in the first quarter of 2011, an improvement of NOK 25 million compared with the corresponding quarter of 2010.

In addition to this, the organisation in Norway has conducted client activity which will generate revenues in the second quarter of 2011. The share issue in a secondary private equity fund, which aims to build a portfolio of Nordic private equity funds, ended at approximately NOK 500 million, of which only approximately NOK 100 million is attributable to the first quarter of 2011. The remaining NOK 400 million was paid to the fund in April, and will thus generate transaction revenues for the Acta Group in the second quarter of 2011.

In addition to revenues from the share issue in the secondary private equity fund, in the second quarter the Acta Group will also recognise approximately NOK 15 million in a correction to the Group's VAT accounts for the last three years. The correction will appear as a reduction in operating costs including depreciations. These factors, along with continued high activity towards clients and normalised costs, will under the prevailing conditions contribute to a significantly stronger second quarter.

The Acta Group has maintained its strong focus on informing and advising clients of the Portfolio account, and as of 31 March 2011 Acta's clients had NOK 8.5 billion of their equity invested with Acta in the Portfolio account.  

Due to changes in the business model and the fact that Acta Markets now contributes significantly to the Group's revenues, we have changed the reporting of the segments in the financial statements. Going forward, the Acta Group will report information attributable to the new segments "Wealth management", "Markets" and "Other". We believe this adaption will make the Group more transparent and easier to understand.

A complete English version of the interim report and the presentation of the 1st quarter of  2011 are attached on  www.newsweb.no and on Acta's Investor Relations web pages www.acta.no.

Geir Inge Solberg
CEO

Contact details:
Geir Inge Solberg, Chief Executive Officer, +47 908 78 043
Christian Tunge, Chief Financial Officer, +47 450 65 850
Rune Wangsmo, Public Relations Director, +47 995 41 507

This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.