James Fisher and Sons Regulatory News (FSJ)

Wednesday 17 November 2010

James Fisher and Sons plc

Interim Management Statement - November 2010

The underlying trends discussed at the half year remain unchanged with Marine Services making good progress and Marine Oil maintaining its profitable start to the year.

Marine Services continued to perform well, with Fendercare, Scan Tech Air Supply and RMSpumptools doing particularly well, despite the anticipated drop in European based ship to ship oil transfer caused by the decline in the oil contango market. The Norwegian market has witnessed less well-testing than last year and our Nuclearbusiness remained quiet. However, the North Sea Offshore market has begun to strengthen, albeit with many projects now flowing into 2011. Our Submarine Rescue business, James Fisher Defence, has benefited from the contracts delivered in 2009 which have now settled down and are delivering to expectation.

Marine Oil continues to improve with the small tanker (4,000 tonne) market having largely recovered whilst some weakness still remains for the larger vessel sizes (6,000 and 10,000 tonnes). Trading within the UK has been slightly weaker than anticipated with the seasonal slowdown for tankships extending into September.

The businesses acquired this year (Australian Commercial Marine Pty Ltd, GMC Produkt AS and RigCool Limited and RigCool Australia Pty Limited) are all trading at least to expectation. They have all been funded from internal resources and our cash flow and relationships with our banks remain sound.

Despite the challenges being thrown up by the current economic environment, James Fisher's strategy to grow its range of marine services both organically and through bolt-on acquisitions is working and the Company is well placed, with a proven track record, to provide further growth and value for our shareholders.

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