hot group plc acquires a further two recruitment companies

and raises 10 million

hot group plc, the AIM listed recruitment specialist is making a further two acquisitions as part of its continuing strategy of building the Company into a leading supplier of both online and traditional services. ASA Ltd and
Mark Education Ltd are being acquired in two separate cash and share deals for a total consideration of 9.7m.

To finance the Acquisitions, provide additional working capital requirements and to potentially exploit further online and traditional acquisition opportunities, the Company is raising 10m by way of a Placing and an Open
Offer of 52,631,582 New Ordinary Shares at 19p per share. The fundraising has been fully underwritten by Numis. Under the Placing, directors Tony Reeves and Don Hanson have agreed to subscribe for a total of 4.7m New
Ordinary Shares.

ASA, a traditional recruitment company that supplies temporary and permanent personnel to the education, legal and pharmaceutical sectors, is being acquired for an initial cash consideration of 3.675m and share
consideration of 0.525m and a capped & collared cash and shares earn-out consideration of up to 1.05m based on operating profit performance.

Founded in 1971, ASA generated operating profits of 0.916m (pre management charges) on a turnover of 9.6m in the year ended 30 September 2003. Based in London and with a small resourcing office in Perth, Australia, ASA has
around 8,200 registered candidates and a client database of over 5,000 companies. Clients include GlaxoSmithKline, Aventis Pharmaceutical, British Medical Association, 15 London Boroughs and approximately 300 primary and
secondary schools in East London, Essex, Surrey and Kent and a number of other local authorities, agencies and hospitals, across the country.

Mark Education, principally involved in the recruitment of permanent and temporary staff in the education sector, is being acquired for 3.3m cash and 10.25m ordinary shares in hot group plc valued at 2.15m. Like ASA, it is principally involved in the recruitment of temporary staff in the
education sector including nursery nurses, classroom assistants and special educational needs teachers. In the year ended 31 December 2003, the company generated revenues of 12m and operating profits of 0.613m (pre management
charges). Mark Education has a broad geographical spread with a network of 15 offices throughout the UK. Established in 1998 by a small group of teacher recruitment experts, it was a privately owned traditional
recruitment company within the Berry Recruitment Group plc. It has expanded through organic growth and the acquisition of Supplynet Recruitment Limited,
a supply teacher agency. Clients include schools across England and local education authorities.

hot groupís Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tony Reeves said: ìWe have been pursuing a strategy of growing the Company both organically and through the acquisition of complementary businesses with a view to building hot into
a leading supplier of online and traditional recruitment services within the UK. These latest acquisitions (our eighth and ninth since we began this strategy in August 2003) fit well with our existing operations and will
enable us to increase the critical mass of our traditional recruitment business and further solidify our growing reputation within the industry.

ìLast November 2003 we moved into the exciting educational recruitment sector with the acquisition of International Teachers Network Ltd (ëITNí), a business specialising in the placement of qualified overseas teachers to
schools in the UK. These new acquisitions have many synergies with ITN and help position us as a leading supplier of pre-school, primary and secondary
teachers in the UK.

ìOn all aspects of our acquisition strategy, both traditional and on-line, we have begun to see financial benefits or prospective benefits through the
streamlining of management, centralising back office infrastructure and reducing the cost of obtaining candidates by utilising the Groupís existing
online services combined with appropriate filtration software.

ìBy building a company that has both online and traditional recruitment divisions, we hope to develop a third service. This new service will integrate the efficiencies of the online capabilities, including real-time access to one of the largest candidate pools in the UK, a huge reduction in
time to hire through rapid response rates and easy to use pre-interview and matching tools, yet retain the final one-to-one personal intervention often required, pre-placement, by the employer.

ìWe feel that through our range of offerings comprising both generalist and niche recruitment businesses together with our blue chip client base, we are well placed to take advantage of our market potential. We are convinced that
by growing the business as we are, we will deliver long-term value through improved operating performance and careful management. We are currently speaking to a number of other acquisition targets and remain confident that
our strategy will continue to be successful.î