Appointment of new director

New Zealand Exchange Limited

P.O. Box 2959

Wellington

12 January 2009

The Board of Widespread Portfolios Limited is pleased to advise that it has today appointed Mr. Denis Kelly as a director of the company. Mr. Kelly's appointment follows the resignation of Ms. Marion Franks from the Board late last year due to other time commitments.

Denis, a foundation shareholder of the company, has over 30 years involvement in the mining and mineral exploration sector. Previous mining sector roles include exploration manager of Brierley Investments' mining offshoot AMOIL NZ Limited and founder executive director and company secretary of Spectrum Resources Limited. He was the founding secretary of the New Zealand Mineral Exploration Association and in 1985 authored the first NZ Mining Environmental Impact Report.

Denis was also company secretary of Brierley Investments for 5 years and a non-executive director of NZX listed Charter Corporation Limited.

More recently he has been executive director of both Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Volleyball New Zealand.

Denis's extensive background in and knowledge of the mining sector will materially strengthen the Widespread Portfolios board. We are particularly fortunate to have access to his knowledge and experience at this testing time in the commodity and mining markets.    

The Board considers that Mr. Kelly is an independent director for the purposes of the NZSX Listing Rules.

On behalf of the Board,

Linda Sanders

Chairman

Email: linda.sanders@xtra.co.nz 

Ph: 03 525 9170