Good start to year2 Sep 2013 15:13
AGM STATEMENT
Simon Richards, Chairman of red24, the international provider of risk management services, will, at its Annual General Meeting to be held this morning at 11:00 am at the Company's offices in London make the following statement:
"We have enjoyed a good start to our fiscal year, with sales and profit before tax both ahead of this stage last year. This is encouraging and largely reflects a higher than expected level of response work. Although it is unlikely that this higher level of response work will persist for the year as a whole, it is at least partly attributable to the broader client base we now have.
Last week we announced the creation of new training group by our acquisition of a 25% stake in Linx International Ltd ("Linx") in exchange for our interest in Arc Training International Ltd. We expect this will create one of the world's leaders in security management training as well as providing opportunities for both red24 and Linx to expand the range of services that they can offer to leading UK and international organisations.
We expect this transaction to be broadly earnings neutral in the short term, though there will be a significant reduction in the turnover receivable by our Business Support segment. In the medium term there is considerable potential for earnings growth as we see the benefit of our share of Linx flow through.