ARL.L Regulatory News (ARL)

6 Sep 2006 07:01

SMC Group Plc06 September 2006 SMC Group Plc ('SMC' or 'the Company') SMC Education wins Building Schools for Future contract SMC Group Plc, the architects and design business, is pleased to announce thatits specialist education division, SMC Education, has been appointed, along withanother architect, to the The Miller Consortium after their successfulappointment by Leicester City Council as the preferred bidder for the city's£235 million Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme. The overall program involves work on 15 schools during a six-year period and is likely to represent stage fees for SMC in excess of £5m. The Leicester City Council scheme represents the launch of the new six-yearpartnership between Leicester City Council, the Miller Consortium andPartnership for Schools (PfS) to refurbish or rebuild secondary schools in thecity. Work is due to start in 2007 at the four schools in phase one of the BSFprogramme. The remaining 11 schools will be delivered in a further three phasesover the following six years. SMC Education is also shortlisted and bidding on sixteen other BSF programmes.The whole BSF programme in England is likely to represent c. £60bn worth ofconstruction value over the next 15 years. - ends - For further information please contact: SMC Group PlcTel:+44 (0)20 7495 5335Stewart McColl Numis SecuritiesTel:+44 (0)20 7776 1500Michael Rowan/Emma Tod Bell Pottinger Corporate & Financial Tel:+44 (0)20 7861 3232David Rydell/Chris Hamilton Notes to Editors SMC Group Plc is the holding company for a group of architects and designers. Ithas established expertise in a broad range of sectors, including residential,retail, industrial, workplace, transportation, leisure and education. On the 30th May 2006, the Group announced the acquisition of The CharterPartnership Ltd (trading as Charter Consultant Architects) an architecture anddesign company with offices in London, Bedford, Bournemouth and Ipswich. Thisfollowed the acquisition of Alsop in March 2006. The Group now has 16 officesthroughout England and 4 outside the UK, in Toronto, Singapore, Shanghai andBeijing. The Company's core strategy is to create an architectural group with the scaleand expertise to access the most profitable schemes across a range of sectorsand geographical locations. The Group intends to focus on its organic growth,increasing its share of the UK market and securing larger, higher marginprojects. The Group plans to continue to complement this organic growth withearnings-enhancing acquisitions in order to consolidate its geographic andsector coverage. On 30th August 2006 the Group announced interim figures for the six months ended30th June 2006, showing that turnover had grown by 108% to £11.5m, profit beforetax grown by 42% to £1.6m and EBITDA increased by 77% to £2.6m. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange