Clarkson Regulatory News (CKN)

Clarkson PLC

("Clarksons" or "The Group")

6 May 2016

AGM STATEMENT

At the Annual General Meeting to be held in London today, James Hughes-Hallett, Chairman of Clarksons, will make the following trading statement covering the period from 1 January 2016 to 5 May 2016:

The global shipping markets have continued to be highly challenging in 2016 with the ClarkSea index, a weighted average index of earnings for the main vessel types in shipping, down 25% for the same period year on year and down 24% quarter on quarter. Against this difficult backdrop our broking business during the period has seen good transaction volumes compared to the market, albeit at lower rates.

In our financial division, where our teams continue to grow our integrated offering, macro-economic uncertainty is hampering trading conditions across international markets, which in turn continues to impact overall activity levels.

Our port services business, as anticipated at the year end, remains impacted by the downturn in the oil and gas industry. Consequently, we are managing the operations to optimise the allocation of resource and ensure that we are in a strong position to react when the market improves.

The challenges across our markets have however increased the importance clients place on our industry-leading market insights, data and research, and this demand continues to underpin growth in our research business.

Outlook

The short term outlook continues to be very challenging. Even though we have again improved market share, the risks to the outcome for the full year have increased and there will once again be a heavier weighting to the second half.