Ncc Regulatory News (NCC)

8 December 2011

NCC Group

Trading update

NCC Group plc (LSE: NCC or "the Group"), the international, independent provider of Escrow and Assurance, is today publishing a trading update. 

The Board now expects Group profit before tax for the current financial year to 31 May 2012 to be between £21.0m and £21.5m, well ahead of market consensus of £19.6m.  Revenue achieved is over 27% ahead of last year's first half performance.

The Group's Escrow businesses have continued to perform in line with the Board's expectations as outlined in the Interim Management Statement on 19 October 2011.  However, the Assurance Division has benefited from the increase in market awareness about information security issues and the need for enterprises to understand, plan and implement operational strategies to counter and handle cyber-attacks.  This has resulted in a significant growth in the revenues and margins in the Assurance Division for the year so far.  This growth was expected by the Board but not in this time scale. 

It is too early in the current financial year to see what impact this change in Assurance's rate of growth in revenue and margins will have on subsequent financial years, particularly given the uncertain economic environment.

Rob Cotton, Group Chief Executive, commented:

"Now that we have closed the first six months of the current financial year, it is clear that the rate of growth in the information security units within Assurance, especially iSEC and NGS, is faster than expected as companies invest to protect themselves from cyber-attack. Our US and UK-based teams offer the best in class testing solutions, supported by our creative and innovative working environments.

"In spite of the wider economic environment, the international information security market will continue to grow extremely rapidly.  We expect to be able to capitalise on what is fast becoming the most important area of investment any company can make as they try to stay ahead in the cyber arms race."

The Group expects to report its half year results for the six months to 30 November 2011 on Thursday 19 January 2012.

Enquiries:

There will be an analyst conference call at 8.30am - please contact Lucy Moseley at

lucy.moseley@collegehill.com or on telephone 020 7457 2020 for details.