Employee Benefit Trust
Any ordinary shares required to satisfy entitlements under nil cost restricted share awards are provided by the Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) from market purchases. As a potential beneficiary under the EBT in the same way as other employees of Reed Elsevier, each executive director is deemed to be interested in all the shares held by the EBT which, at 31 December 2008, amounted to 20,078,899 Reed Elsevier PLC ordinary shares (1.76% of issued share capital) and 11,177,422 Reed Elsevier NV ordinary shares (1.60% of issued share capital).
On 7 January 2008 the Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV ordinary shares in issue were consolidated on the basis of 58 new ordinary shares for every 67 existing ordinary shares held. The deemed interests of the directors in the shares held by the EBT, together with their personal interests as shown above, were adjusted on 7 January 2008 in accordance with the consolidation ratio.