Preliminary Announcement of Unaudited Results for the Year Ended 31 March 2007

Private Equity Investor PLC ("PEI" or "the Company"), the investment trust that seeks to achieve substantial capital appreciation by investment in specialised US venture capital funds focussed on IT and other technology sectors, announces its preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2007.

Key points:

• Plans to make an initial cash distribution to shareholders of at least $20 million later this year
• Fourteen IPOs of underlying portfolio companies during the year
• Distributions for the year increased to $32.5 million, with $13.2 million realised from the sale of Baidu stock (received from DFJ ePlanet) resulting in a 42.3x return on the underlying investment
• Cash and readily realisable assets grew to $65.4 million or $40.2 million allowing for the outstanding commitments to LPs
• New initiatives undertaken during the year including the formation and funding of the Campton Group, Inc ("Campton") to develop a fund-of-funds management and advisory business

For further information please visit www.peiplc.com or contact:

I am pleased to present the results for Private Equity Investor PLC ("PEI" or "the Company") for the year ended 31 March 2007.

Results and Dividend

The Company's Net Asset Value ("NAV") at 31 March 2007 was 173.42p, compared with 170.78p a year earlier, an increase of 1.55%. The NAV per share in dollars, the currency in which the Company's investments are made, rose by 14.82%, from 296.23c per share to 340.14c per share. This compares favourably with the NASDAQ composite index, which rose by only 3.5% (from 2339.79 to 2421.64). However, the dollar weakened against sterling during the period, with the exchange rate moving from $1.73 to $1.96.

During the year, the Company generated significant investment income and a dividend of 1.10p per share will be paid on 11 October 2007 to Shareholders on the Register on 10 August 2007.

Distributions from Fund Investments

The twelve months under review saw the Company continue to receive a high level of distributions in cash and securities from its investments in venture capital funds ("Funds"). The total value of these distributions was $32.5 million, compared with $31.4 million in the previous year. Of this sum, $13.2 million was realised from the sale of Baidu stock (received from DFJ ePlanet) resulting in a 42.3x return on the underlying investment. A further small holding of Baidu remains to be distributed by this Fund. A further $4.1 million was received in cash as a result of the sale of Redback Networks, (a TCV IV holding), which resulted in a 3.1x return on the underlying investment and $3.3 million in cash came from the sale of Colloquis, (a Dawntreader II holding), in a transaction that returned 1.7x on the underlying investment. The balance of $11.9 million, of which $5.7 million was cash, was received from a number of smaller realisations.

In March this year an initial distribution was received of DivX shares (a Zone Ventures II holding) followed by a second distribution in April, totalling 96,280 shares. These shares were sold at a premium to the distribution price of $20.43 per share, raising $2.1 million of which $227,000 was received prior to year end. We estimate that there remain up to 338,000 shares of DivX which PEI may receive in future distributions from Zone Ventures II.

A number of Funds held by the Company have written up the holding value of their portfolio investments in line with the Financial Accounting Standards Board's FAS 157, which defines fair value, establishes a framework for measuring fair value and expands disclosures about fair value measurements. Although not technically effective until 2008, this standard is beginning to be applied and should generally result in higher valuations, as underlying investments are valued at fair value rather than principally on a transaction basis or in order to recognise a provision.

The Company's year-end cash and readily realisable assets totalled $65.4 million, compared with outstanding commitments of $25.2 million. Of this figure approximately $13.7 million is due to be called from the original portfolio and $11.5 million from the three more recent holdings. The Company's year-end liquid assets exceeded its commitments by $40.2 million.

New Initiatives

As announced with the interim results in December last year, PEI has been exploring new ways to develop its business. The Company initially raised funds in 2000 and was rapidly invested in a portfolio of funds that were principally of the 1999 and 2000 "vintages". There followed a period when no new commitments were made, pending the receipt of distributions that would permit a new phase of investment. During this time, the Company's shares began to trade at a substantial discount to NAV and a significant transfer of ownership of the Company's shares took place. The principal new shareholders who came onto the register at this time and who now own a major part of the share capital, have indicated to the Board that they wish to see the principal part of the return cash flows from the existing Funds distributed to investors, rather than being allocated to new long-term commitments. The Board has accepted this view and it announced in the Interim Statement that it was looking to return cash to shareholders in a tax efficient way. In time, this is expected to result in a substantial majority of the value held in the existing portfolio of Funds being returned to shareholders. The Board believes, however, that there is value in PEI over and above its current Fund portfolio. In this context, the Company has announced the formation of Campton Group, in which it proposes to have a majority interest. Campton, of which further details are given below, will initially advise the Company on its existing portfolio and intends to develop a fund-of-funds management and advisory business that may provide its services both to the Company and to third parties. Campton will also structure and raise new funds in which PEI may invest. Whilst the business of Campton is being developed, PEI has made a number of commitments to highly regarded private equity and venture capital funds with the intention of transferring these to a new fund-of-funds vehicle to be raised by PEI and Campton. The Company believes that these "warehoused" commitments will be the cornerstone of such new fund-of-funds and that PEI will benefit both from participation in such new funds-of-funds and from the development of Campton's fund management business in which it will own a controlling interest.

Distribution to Shareholders

As at 1 July 2007, the Company had approximately $70 million in cash and readily realisable assets on hand, approximately $32 million in unfunded commitments and additional amounts available to be committed under the warehousing programme. The Company now plans to distribute at least $20 million to shareholders in 2007 and is seeking the most tax efficient manner in which to do so. It is envisaged that, after this distribution is made to shareholders, the Company will continue to periodically distribute excess funds to shareholders.

Market overview

In 2006, fundraising by US venture capital firms continued to increase at a relatively steady pace with 212 funds raising $30.2 billion in 2006 compared with 218 funds raising $27.9 billion in 2005 and 205 funds raising $18.5 billion in 2004.

In the first quarter of 2007, venture capitalists invested $7.1 billion into 778 deals, the highest quarterly dollar amount since the fourth quarter of 2001, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data by Thomson Financial. Whilst the number of venture investments declined in the quarter compared with the fourth quarter of 2006, this reflected a trend of more dollars being invested in each round. Investments in later stage companies, however, increased significantly in the first quarter of 2007 with $3.0 billion dollars going into 245 deals compared with $1.9 billion invested in 207 deals during the fourth quarter of 2006. This was the highest dollar level in over six years.

In the twelve months to 31 March 2007 there were 64 venture-backed Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), raising $6.7 billion, compared with 56 IPOs raising $4.3 billion in the previous year. In the first quarter of 2007, seventeen venture-backed companies undertook IPOs, raising $2.1 billion, compared with the first quarter of 2006 when only ten venture-backed companies went public raising $541 million. Venture-backed merger and acquisition activity declined significantly with only 62 transactions completed during the first quarter of 2007 compared with 104 in the first quarter of 2006. However, the average disclosed deal size for the first quarter of 2007 was $161.2 million, one of the higher quarters in the last five years.

Portfolio review

As at 31 March 2007, the Company's portfolio Funds held underlying investments in over 450 private and over 55 public companies. These underlying investments represent approximately 60% of the Company's net asset value (2006: 70%) Of the 21 Funds that make up the portfolio, 14 reported a gain in value over the period. Portfolio Funds made 116 new investments (2006: 82), and 202 follow-on investments (2006: 247) which resulted in draw downs by portfolio Funds totalling $11.6 million (2006: $23.6 million). A total of 145 underlying investments were written up (2006: 116) by the Funds, 112 were written down (2006: 83), and 74 underlying investments were written off (2006: 62).

As noted above, distributions during the year ending 31 March 2007 totalled $32.5 million compared with $31.4 million for 2006 and $5.7 million for 2005. Cash distributions accounted for $13.1 million compared with $20.3 million in 2006 and $4.3 million in 2005. The balance of $19.4 million was received in the form of stock distributions and compares with $11.1 million for 2006 and $1.4 million for 2005.

During the fiscal year under review, 14 of PEI's underlying portfolio companies undertook IPOs (2006: seven). These were:

Techwell (TCV IV): a fabless semiconductor company that designs, markets and sells mixed signal integrated circuits for multiple digital video applications in the consumer, security surveillance and automotive markets, including advanced TVs, multifunction LCD monitors, DVD recorders, security surveillance systems and in-car LCD displays.

Targacept (NEA 10): a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the design, discovery and development of a new class of drugs to treat multiple diseases and disorders of the central nervous system by selectively targeting neuronal nicotinic receptors.

Novacea (NEA 10): a biopharmaceutical company focused on in-licensing, developing and commercialising novel therapies for the treatment of cancer.

Vonage (NEA 10): a leading provider of broadband telephone services utilising innovative Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP.

DivX (Zone II): a leading consumer-focused, video technology company positioned at the centre of multimedia convergence. The company's core offering is the DivX video codec, the world's most popular MPEG-4 compatible video compression-decompression technology with over 100 million users worldwide.

CommVault Systems (Sprout IX): a company that provides a suite of software that helps to efficiently and reliably perform all aspects of data management – including archive, protection, recovery, remote office and disaster recovery, and storage resource management.

eHealth, Inc (Sprout IX): sells health insurance over the Internet to individuals, families, and small businesses. The company is licensed to sell in all 50 states and Washington DC. eHealth has partnerships with some 140 health insurance carriers, enabling it to offer more than 5,000 products online – including health, dental, vision, term life, student health and short-term health insurance products.

Isilon Systems (Focus II): develops and markets intelligent clustered storage systems for data-intensive businesses and clustered computing environments.

Affymax (Sprout IX): a biopharmaceutical company creating novel approaches for improving patient care for serious and life-threatening conditions in kidney disease and cancer.

Thermage (DFJ ePlanet): a medical device company that has developed and is commercialising advanced radio-frequency technologies for dermatology and plastic surgery applications.

Point-1 (DFJ ePlanet): (listed on KOSDAQ, Korea's version of America's Nasdaq): a spin-off from Korea Telecom in 1998, based in Seoul, Korea. Point-1 is an early leader in the development of location enabling technologies and application services, and provides carrier-grade LBS/GIS platforms based on scalable and open middleware.

Hansen Medical (Vanguard VII): has developed an electromechanical robot to provide accurate and efficient control over catheter movement during cardiac interventional procedures.

Glu Mobile Inc (NEA 10): a global publisher of mobile games.

Sourcefire, Inc (NEA 10): a provider of intelligence driven, open source network security solutions that enable users to protect their computer networks.

The Campton Group, Inc.

As previously reported, PEI has financed the formation of the Campton Group, Inc. with a view to developing a private equity fund-of-funds management and advisory business. The Campton Group is headed by Allen Latta, who has nearly 20 years' experience in private equity, venture capital and corporate finance. Campton is based in San Francisco, California, which together with Silicon Valley forms the hub of venture capital activity in the United States. Personal relationships are an important aspect of the venture capital industry and Campton's location in San Francisco provides a strategic advantage in maintaining and developing these relationships.

PEI has financed Campton to date and will have a majority stake in the company once it is fully operational with the balance being held by the management team of Campton. PEI and Campton have entered into an advisory agreement effective 1 April 2007, whereby Campton provides certain non-discretionary advisory services to PEI with respect to its current fund investment portfolio. This structure, combined with the warehoused portfolio of commitments, provides the foundation for raising a new fund-of-funds vehicle that PEI and Campton plan to launch.

Post Period Events

As part of the warehoused commitment strategy, PEI has recently made commitments to two new funds in highly regarded partnerships, Institutional Venture Partners and Vector Capital. In May, PEI made a $5 million commitment to Institutional Venture Partners XII, L.P. With more than $2.2 billion of committed capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is one of the premier later-stage venture capital firms in the United States. Founded in 1980, IVP invests in venture growth, industry consolidations, recapitalisations and select public market transactions. During its 26-year history, IVP has invested in over 200 companies – with more than 80 IPOs to its credit. IVP XII will focus on three target sectors: Communications and Wireless, Internet and Digital Media, and Enterprise IT companies.

In July, PEI made a $4 million commitment to Vector Capital IV, L.P. Vector Capital is a specialist investor in small-cap buy-outs, restructurings and spin-outs in the technology sector. Vector received substantial press coverage for its highly successful take-private of Corel Corporation, the maker of WordPerfect software. Vector Capital was founded in 1997 and has, with the closing of Fund IV, over $1.8 billion in capital under management.

Together with its commitments to IVP XII and Vector Capital IV, PEI has made five commitments totalling $22 million under its warehoused commitment strategy. PEI may make further selected commitments as part of this ongoing strategy but plans to transfer all of the 'warehoused' commitments to the new fund-of-funds vehicle upon its closing.

Outlook

The Venture Capital industry in America is in a healthy position at the current time with few signs of overheating. The lessons of the 2000 boom still appear to be heeded with the industry growing at a steady, measured pace. For example, overall pre-money valuations for venture funding rounds remain broadly similar to those of 2006, having risen from the relatively low levels of the early 2000 period. Within industry sectors, media/entertainment and internet specific companies continue to receive more interest and investment and recently a new category for the industry, cleantech, has also seen significant new investment by a number of groups.

We expect that the Company's original portfolio will continue to deliver a steady flow of distributions, though the mix of sales and IPOs may be more balanced as corporations have slowed their acquisition pace while the number of companies seeking IPO's has increased. As noted in the half year statement we are exploring ways of returning capital to shareholders in a tax efficient manner and plan to make an initial start to this process later this year with a distribution of at least $20 million.

Peter Dicks

Chairman

27 July 2007

INCOME STATEMENT

for the year ended 31 March 2007

The total column of this statement is the profit and loss account of the Company.

All revenue and capital items in the above statement derive from continuing operations.

No operations were acquired or discontinued during the year.

No statement of total recognised gains and losses is shown separately, since all such gains are included within the income statement above.

RECONCILIATION OF MOVEMENTS IN SHAREHOLDERS' FUNDS

for the year ended 31 March 2007

BALANCE SHEET

as at 31 March 2007

Investments at fair value through profit or loss

Basic and diluted

SUMMARISED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS

for the year ended 31 March 2007

The financial information set out above does not constitute statutory accounts in accordance with section 240 of the Companies Act 1985 for the years ended 31 March 2006 or 2007, and has been based on the accounting policies used in the statutory accounts for the year ended 31 March 2006. Statutory accounts for 2006 have been delivered to the Registrar of Companies, whereas those for 2007 will be delivered following the Company's Annual General Meeting. The auditors have reported on the 2006 accounts; their report was unqualified and did not contain a statement under section 237 (2) or (3) of the Companies Act 1985.

Copies of the Annual Report will be sent to Members in August and will be available to members of the public from the Registered Office at Beaufort House, 51 New North Road, EXETER. EX4 4EP.

Peter Dicks

Chairman

27 July 2007