ARL.L Regulatory News (ARL)

29 Jun 2006 08:00

SMC Group Plc29 June 2006 SMC Group Plc ("SMC") Appointment of Broker The Board of SMC Group Plc, the AIM-listed leading group of architects anddesigners, is pleased to announce that it has appointed Numis Securities Limitedas its nominated adviser and broker with immediate effect. -ends- For further information contact: SMC Group PlcStewart McColl 020 7495 5335 Bell PottingerDavid Rydell/Geoff Callow 020 7861 3232 NumisJag Mundi/Stuart Skinner 0207 776 1500 Notes to Editors SMC Group Plc is the holding company for a group of architects and designers. It was admitted to trading on AIM on the 10th of June 2005 and has established expertise in a broad range of sectors, including residential, retail, industrial, workplace, transportation, leisure and education. On 30th May 2006 the Group announced the acquisition of Charter Consultant Architects. Recent additions, to the Group such as this have enabled SMC to expand its national coverage throughout England, with offices in London, Warwick, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, Lancaster, Exeter, Plymouth, Cambridge, Bedford, Bournemouth and Ipswich. On the 23rd March 2006, the company acquired the business and assets of Alsop, the RIBA Stirling Prize winning design team with offices in London, Toronto, Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing a team with a particularly high creative profile. The Group's core strategy is to create an architectural group with the scale and expertise to access the most profitable schemes across a range of sectors and geographical locations. The Group intends to focus on its organic growth, increasing its share of the UK market and securing larger, higher margin projects, and plans to complement this organic growth with earnings-enhancing acquisitions in order to consolidate its geographic and sector coverage. On 27th April 2006 the Group announced its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2005. It reported that turnover had grown by 159% to £13.5m, profit before tax grown by 280% to £2.9m and profit after tax grown by 263% to £1.9m, all compared to the same period in 2004. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange