Ceps Regulatory News (CEPS)

CEPS PLC

("CEPS" or the "Company")

Trading update

The Board of CEPS announces a trading update.

On 17 June 2019 The Board announced in the AGM Statement that the Group as a whole was trading in line with budget for the four months to 30 April 2019.

Since this date, Aford Awards, Friedman's and Hickton/BRCS have continued to perform either in line with expectations or well above expectations, but losses at the CEM group, now including Sampling International, have increased significantly. This is due in part to the material integration and rationalisation costs, including the redundancy costs of 27 people, relating to the acquisition of Sampling International in March 2019 which were unbudgeted. Turnaround at Sampling International is now well underway as the company enters into what has been historically its busiest period of the year. However, as part of the rationalisation programme certain business has been moved to Sampling International from CEM where it can be better and more efficiently serviced. Clearly this has, in the short term, left a gap in the sales and output at CEM.

In addition, Davies Odell's performance for H1 was below budget and showed a small loss but has now returned to profit at the end of July 2019.

Consequently, Group trading overall is materially behind expectations for the six months to 30 June 2019.

Further analysis of individual subsidiary company performance will be provided in the Half Yearly Report to Shareholders 2019 which will be available in September 2019.

The announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014.

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