EXO.L Regulatory News (EXO)

11 November 2015

Exova Group plc

Trading Update

Organic growth on track and acquisitions performing to plan 

Exova Group plc ("Exova"), a leading international provider of technically demanding testing, certification and advisory services, today releases a Trading Update for the period since 30 June 2015 to date. Where stated, financial results are for the period from 1 January to 31 October 2015 compared with the corresponding period in 2014.

Group performance for the ten months to 31 October 2015

· Revenue up 9.3% at constant currency; 7.5% at actual rates

o 2.7% organic growth at constant currency (7.6% excluding Oil & Gas and Industrials)

o 6.6% growth from M&A activity

· BM TRADA acquisition integrating well and performing in line with expectations

· M&A pipeline continues to be strong

· Outlook for 2015 earnings remains unchanged

Regional performance in the period from 1 July 2015 to date

In Europe, we saw good organic growth in our Health Sciences and Product & Certification clusters. The integration of BM TRADA, which we acquired in May this year, has gone well and the business is on track to deliver in line with expectations for 2015 and to realise the planned synergies in 2016. As expected, the impact of low oil prices has led to further contraction and price pressure in our Oil & Gas and Industrials cluster.

Organic revenues in the Americas have improved as we continued to see good progress in the Aerospace and Transportation sectors. Our Oil & Gas and Industrials cluster has experienced similar headwinds to Europe.

In Rest of World, strong growth has continued in the Middle East and the pipeline of new contracts looks strong into 2016.

We have continued to take restructuring actions across the Group to mitigate the impact on margin where we face market headwinds.

Outlook

The Board confirms previous guidance for full year earnings in 2015. Restructuring costs will also be in line with expectations.

Ian El-Mokadem, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"I am pleased with our overall performance for the year to date. We have seen good growth in most of our sectors and are making very good progress with acquisitions."

Full year results

The Group's full year results to 31 December 2015 will be announced on 2 March 2016.

Contacts

Ian Middleton / Sophie Moate

Powerscourt Group

Tel. Direct +44 (0)20 7250 1446 / +44 (0)7885 508 527

exova@powerscourt-group.com

Ian Power, Investor Relations

Exova Group plc

Telephone: +44 (0) 131 476 7619

investor.relations@exova.com

About Exova

Exova is one of the world's leading laboratory-based testing groups, trusted by organisations to test and advise on the safety, quality and performance of their products and operations. Headquartered in Edinburgh, UK Exova operates 143 laboratories and offices in 32 countries and employs around 4,500 people throughout Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia/Asia Pacific.

Exova's capabilities help to extend asset life, bring predictability to applications, and shorten the time to market for customers' products, processes and materials. With over 90 years' experience, Exova specialises in testing across a number of key sectors from health sciences to aerospace, transportation, oil and gas, fire and construction.

This Trading Update release contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties and actual results and developments may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements by a variety of factors. These forward-looking statements speak only as at the date of this press release. In addition, all projections, valuations and statistical analyses provided in this document may be based on unaudited pro-forma financial information, subjective assessments and assumptions. They may use alternative methodologies that produce different results and should not be relied upon as an accurate prediction of future performance.