ELE.L Regulatory News (ELE)

16 December 2013

Electric Word plc

Year end trading update

Electric Word plc, the specialist information business, today announces the following update for the year ended 30th November 2013 ahead of its preliminary results announcement on 17 February 2014.

Trading is in line with the Board's expectations, with profit growth in the Sport & Gaming division complemented by increased investment in Education.

In the Education division, 2013 has seen further growth in its Conferences business, which in the final quarter has achieved the highest number of delegates for four years. At the same time, the business has deepened its investment in its digital support service for school managers and a range of new self-delivered training products has been developed. The migration of subscribers to the new digital platform has now been completed and the service will continue to be developed through 2014 as a cost-effective source of professional education and advice. With the market now stable and school managers facing considerable challenges to improve both performance and efficiency, the Education division has the opportunity to achieve considerable future growth.

The Health division has also ended the year positively, with the Speechmark speech and language therapy business enjoying a recovering in the second half after a disappointing start to the year. The investment in the transition to digital products in this business is at a very early stage compared to the Education or Sport & Gaming markets and is expected to increase in 2014. In preparation for these changes a restructuring of the Health business has been agreed. This will entail the closing of the editorial and production office in Milton Keynes and centralising operations in one location in London. The aim is to drive the development of new digital products in a multi-disciplinary environment.

The Sport & Gaming division has seen further growth in 2013 with the continuing expansion of iGB Affiliate events. iGaming Business North America has also grown revenue and can expect to benefit from the recently-announced partnership with the iGaming North America conference. In SportBusiness, the high-value TV Sports Markets subscriptions service grew strongly in 2013 and new investments were made in growing subscription revenues by launching the SportBusiness Knowledge Centre and in developing Sports Sponsorship Insider.

Overall the Group has made good progress in 2013 in what has been a year of significant change, including at Board level. The new Chairman and new Finance Director appointed earlier in the year are also to be joined by a new Non-Executive Director. The Board is delighted to welcome Henrietta Elizabeth Marsh (54), who takes up her role on 1 January 2014.

Under the 2012 placing announced on 17 August 2012, the Company granted ISIS EP LLP ("ISIS") the right to appoint a representative of ISIS to the Board. Henrietta Marsh has been nominated by ISIS to be appointed to the Board of the Company

Henrietta is a non-executive director of Acal plc and Dods (Group) plc, a director of Henrietta Marsh Consulting Ltd, a member of the London Stock Exchange's AIM Advisory Group and also acts in a consultancy role at ISIS where she is an Operating Partner. Prior to her current positions, Henrietta was a Fund Manager at ISIS Equity Partners and a Director at 3i plc. She does not currently hold any shares in, or options over shares in, the capital of the Company.

Save as set out in this announcement, there is no further information in respect of Ms. Marsh`s appointment required to be disclosed pursuant to paragraph (g) of Schedule 2 to the AIM Rules for Companies. 

ISIS is the owner of 112,657,540 ordinary shares, representing 27.69 per cent. of the issued share capital of the Company.

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