AGM Statement

RNS Number : 9245J

Christie Group PLC

18 June 2014

 

18 June 2014

Christie Group plc

("Christie Group" or the "Company")

AGM Statement

Christie Group plc (CTG.L), the leading provider of Professional Business Services and Stock & Inventory Systems & Services to the leisure, retail and care markets, announces that at today's Annual General Meeting, the Chairman, Philip Gwyn, issued the following statement:

"As previously reported in our recent trading statement, 2014 started well with a strong pipeline of activity. We anticipate a positive first half. We have a significant number of current assignments in both our Professional Business Services division and our Stock & Inventory Systems & Services division which provides the basis for our confidence in the outlook for the remainder of 2014.

Stock & Inventory Systems & Services

The integration of our German based stocktaking business, now trading as Orridge Inventory Services, is progressing well. The costs of integration are broadly as envisaged and our pipeline of assignments is filling for the second half.

Our UK stocktaking business continues to achieve a high retention rate through contracts secured with retailers such as Superdrug and Savers, and in hospitality through Venners with Marston's and Elior. New business wins included HMV and Blackwell, and Red Hot Buffet and Atlas Fine Wines respectively. Vending machine operators have provided further counts.

Vennersys, our visitor attraction systems business, has had a busy period upgrading clients to Windows 7 and ensuring that our clients are able to meet the more stringent PCI compliance requirement of their banks.

Professional Business Services
Christie + Co advised a number of the successful bidders on over €10bn of non-performing loan portfolios that included hospitality, leisure and petrol retailing assets. We remain active in advising the world's leading opportunity and hedge funds in the NPL space across the entirety of our office network.

We have provided the data room valuation of TRACScare, a portfolio of 75 learning disability units: the valuation subsequently adopted by the purchasers. In the biggest childcare sector deal this year, we tendered a group sale to Busy Bees in just 13 weeks, providing a data room of 1,430 documents in the process.

Pharmacy sales continue apace and we are experiencing strong demand for dental practices.

We acted for the administrators in the recently announced sale of 88 pubs by Retail & Licensed Properties, thereby completing the sale of 244 outlets in aggregate. Other pub instructions included 34 new lettings for Punch Taverns and sales including the Albannach in Trafalgar Square to Fullers and the Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor.

Individual hotel sales included the Queen's Gate Hotel in London at £40m, the Crowne Plaza in Ealing and the Holiday Inn, Bromsgrove for a combined £21m, and the sale of the freehold property investment of the renowned Randolph Hotel, Oxford, with trading of the successful hotel business unaffected.

Our international team between them speak 22 languages. Operating in a somewhat subdued mainland European market, we achieved sales including the Robinson Club Schlanitzen Alm in Austria, Park Inn Orange in France, NH Santander Parayas in Spain and Aparthotel Oberhof in Germany, with further activity in neighbouring regions where we have no fixed office base.

Since the announcement that the government's Funding for Lending scheme will now focus solely on business lending, Christie Finance has experienced downward movement on required debt margins, thereby improving affordability.

Our appraisal business, Pinders, has enjoyed a sustained post-recession recovery with demand-driven increases in fee level, and  volumes ahead in all sectors - Retail and Catering, Leisure and Healthcare.

Christie Insurance was appointed a broker, following its review of Mountain Range Restaurants - a challenge to re-broke as one of its outlets was under water at the time!

Outlook

As previously indicated, we expect to report a positive first half at the time of our interim results statement in mid-September. Notwithstanding the lagging recovery in continental Europe, with the benefit of a number of hotel and other portfolio transactions that we have in train, we anticipate significant growth from our existing activities for the full year."

Enquiries:

Christie Group plc

David Rugg                                                                                                        020 7227 0707

Chief Executive

Dan Prickett                                                                                                       020 7227 0700

Chief Financial Officer

Charles Stanley Securities:

Russell Cook / Carl Holmes                                                                                 020 7149 6000

Nominated Adviser & Broker

Notes to Editors:

Christie Group plc, quoted on AIM, is a leading professional business services group with 43 offices across the UK, Europe and Canada, catering to its specialist markets in the leisure, retail and care sectors.

Christie Group operates in two complementary business divisions: Professional Business Services (PBS) and Stock & Inventory Systems & Services (SISS). These divisions trade under the brand names: PBS - Christie + Co, Pinders, Christie Finance and Christie Insurance: SISS - Orridge, Venners and Vennersys.

Tracing its origins back to 1846, the Group has a long established reputation for offering essential services to client companies in agency, valuation services, investment, consultancy, project management, multi-functional trading systems and online ticketing services, stock audit and inventory management. The diversity of these services provides a natural balance to the Group's core agency business.

For more information, please go to www.christiegroup.com.

 

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