APP.L Regulatory News (APP)

20 Sep 2005 11:58

Park Group PLC20 September 2005 Immediate release 20 September 2005 PARK GROUP PLC AGM STATEMENT During the last financial year we completed the disposal, begun in the previousyear, of our non-core businesses, leaving us with two divisions - Cash Savingsand Cash Lending. I am pleased to report the continued growth of our cash savings division,comprising the Christmas mail order businesses of Park, Country, and High StreetGift Vouchers. Sales of this division in the year were up 9% at £214.5m, whileprofit before tax has risen 33% to £8.3m The number of agents has increased by 8% to 83,000, while customer numbers forthis coming Christmas are 1% higher at 517,000. It is pleasing to note that ourcurrent order book, at £172m for Christmas 2005, is 4% higher than at the samepoint last year. During the past year we invested in our Internet capabilities. The Park andCountry web-sites now have more than 13,000 agents registered to manage theiraccounts on-line. In addition, our new highstreetvouchers.com web-site, whereboth new & existing retail customers as well as corporate customers may purchasea range of high street vouchers on-line, is proving very successful. All theseweb-sites may be accessed easily by clicking on the links from our corporatesite. Our recruitment campaign for Christmas 2006 began yesterday with thelaunch of this year's television advertising schedule. Our corporate voucher business increased sales during 2004/5 by 11% year onyear, with growth in sales to the incentive market at 50%. During the year welaunched our Love2reward incentive product which provides a shopping, travel andleisure voucher package for corporate customers. Moving on to the lending division, the range of products available to customershas increased with the acquisition of Imagine Finance. This specialises in thebroking of secured loans and mortgages, to which we have now added generalinsurance broking. These products are marketed to all our customers as well asvia the branch network. We are currently test-marketing using the Internet,television and direct mail. Park Direct Credit, our home collected credit business, continued to grow itsloan book last year. However, during the first half of the current year theCompany, along with some of its competitors, has experienced a deterioration incollection performance. This will lead to an increase in the rate of bad debtcharge this year although the scale of the impact on the Group's result willdepend critically on performance up to Christmas and the period thereafter. The Competition Commission investigation into the home collected credit marketcontinues. We have contributed to the information gathering process and this hasplaced an additional burden on management. However our involvement is nowreducing and the Commission is expected to publish its provisional findings bythe end of the year. You will have noted in our Annual Report that your Board intends to transfer theCompany's stock exchange listing from the main market to AIM. This remains thecase and a circular will be sent out to shareholders shortly. As noted in thesame Annual Report, discussions are taking place between the Company and me andthe executive directors of Park about our acquiring the Company with third partyfinancial support. These discussions continue and either the Board or theCommittee of Independent Directors will report further to shareholders asappropriate. PETER JOHNSON20 September 2005 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange