Begbies Regulatory News (BEG)

26 Sep 2008 07:00



BEGBIES TRAYNOR GROUP PLC

("the Group")

AGM Statement

Trading Update 

Begbies Traynor Group plc, the leading AIM listed professional services company, is today holding its Annual General Meeting.

Ric Traynor, executive chairman, will make the following remarks at the AGM:

"I am pleased to report that the current financial year has started well for the Group, with current trading in line with management expectations, reflecting in particular the strong trading of the insolvency division. 

The Group`s core business of insolvency administration, which accounts for approximately 75% of the Group`s overall turnover, has continued its good progress and is trading ahead of management expectations and significantly ahead of the same period last year. This reflects the general market conditions for insolvency services given the current economic conditions prevailing in the UK and the benefits of our significant investment in expanding the practice in recent years.

The integration of the Group`s three tax consulting acquisitions made over the last year has now been completed and the division is trading in line with expectations. The Group intends to steadily grow this service line through a combination of organic and acquisition investment, and fee earning headcount has increased by 7 from 48 since the start of the financial year through senior level recruitment. 

As expected, the Group`s corporate finance division has experienced challenging market conditions in recent months, as both debt and equity funding appetite has diminished. Whilst the volume of mandates is holding up well, the difficulty of, and time taken, to complete transactions have dramatically increased, leading to lower than budgeted revenues. We are responding to this environment by shifting the focus of the division more towards advisory work which complements our core business.

Our strategy is to focus on our core activity of mid-market insolvency, which is experiencing an upturn in activity resulting from the worsening economic outlook, whilst steadily developing other service lines that have good short to medium term prospects. The Group is in a strong financial position, particularly given the recently completed placing of new shares which raised £13.0m before costs. These funds are providing additional working capital to further support our strategy and the organic growth in insolvency activity.

An update on our performance for the six months ending 31 October 2008 will be provided in early December.

Enquiries please contact:

Information on Begbies Traynor can be accessed via the Group's website at www.begbies-traynorgroup.com