Pre-Close Trading Update

Morgan Sindall PLC 19 December 2006 Morgan Sindall plc Pre-close Trading Update The Board of Morgan Sindall plc today announces a trading update, prior to its close period, for the year to 31 December 2006. The Group's preliminary results will be announced in February 2007. Trading Overall the Group has made further progress during the year and is trading in line with expectations and again seeing year on year growth. Fit Out's market has remained buoyant and the division has traded strongly throughout the current period. In November the division secured its biggest contract to date with Deloitte, which is in line with its stated intention of delivering larger scale projects. Overall the forward order book has been maintained at a level similar to June 2006 and this order book supports our view that the current market strength will continue well into 2007. Construction continues to focus on its target sectors of health, education, light industrial and commercial. Revenue and profit for 2006 are expected to increase modestly on 2005 and the forward order book has been broadly maintained. Infrastructure Services has been very successful in securing £800m of new contracts across the infrastructure, utilities, tunnelling and rail sectors, which is expected to lead to increased revenue and profit in 2007. In particular, the new rail business is performing well and is expected to contribute significantly to this growth. However, as previously announced, the combination of the reorganisation of the division in the first half of the year and the commencement of new contracts will impact margins in 2006. Affordable Housing's margin continues to grow strongly. Current workload is balanced between new build and refurbishment activities, with the Decent Homes frameworks continuing to be an important part of the division's workload. However, we expect future growth to be increasingly driven by larger, more complex mixed tenure schemes. The forward order book has been maintained and there are also a number of larger scale opportunities in the pipeline. Overall the forward order book stands at £3.4bn, an increase of 22% since the beginning of the year. This reflects, in particular, the strong market conditions in Fit Out and Infrastructure Services. Average cash balances will be lower than in the previous year owing to the £23m acquisition in March of the non-track rail business and further investment in working capital at Affordable Housing. All of our markets continue to demonstrate growth and the outlook for the Group remains positive. 19 December 2006 Enquiries: Morgan Sindall plc Tel: 020 7307 9200 Paul Smith, Chief Executive David Mulligan, Finance Director College Hill Tel: 020 7457 2020 Matthew Smallwood This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange D
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