Trading Update

Comino Group PLC 12 September 2001 COMINO GROUP PLC TRADING UPDATE The Company announced at its AGM on 6 July 2001 that its profits to 31 March 2001 had been in line with expectations and it had shown a 24 per cent growth in core business. Comino has consistently demonstrated year on year growth. Whilst historically the Company has experienced stronger performance in the second half of its financial years, the performance rate in the first half of the current financial year is proving to be significantly below the Company's expectation. This is primarily due to a reduction in the number of new local authority contracts. In addition, the Company has increased development expenditure in occupational pensions at some cost to short-term profitability. Local authorities, which have been heavily involved in completing funding applications to central government for IEG (the Implementation of Electronic Government), have been slower than expected in awarding new contracts. The Board believes that these contracts have not been lost to competitors and that continuing negotiations will still result in significant new business. The functionality of the occupational pensions product is being extended to include pensioner payroll and third party administration. The early completion of these additional modules will significantly enhance the product range in a sector from which the Company expects to see substantial future growth. Maintaining quality of service to existing customers, during this period of additional development, is vital and capacity to undertake new business is therefore limited in the short-term until available resource is trained. Comino is experiencing improved performance in its second quarter but this will be insufficient to prevent a loss at the half year. The Board anticipates stronger performance in the second half of the year based on its order book and prospects and expects to make a profit for the year as a whole. However, this profit will be significantly reduced compared with that achieved to 31 March 2001. The Company, in anticipation of continued growth has invested in further people and infrastructure with a consequential increase in overheads. The Board believes that this investment is still key to that growth. The Company's investment in Comino Techflow, and its product for the professional services automation market, has been scaled back but plans remain to address the market when general economic conditions improve. The Board believes that the strength of Comino's customer base, the level of its recurring income, the resilience of its core business and its strong balance sheet, positions the Company well for future growth. The Board will keep shareholders fully appraised of further progress and anticipates making its interim statement as usual in late November 2001. END

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