Harvey Nash Group Regulatory News (HVN)

30 Jun 2005 07:00

Harvey Nash Group PLC30 June 2005 HARVEY NASH GROUP PLC Annual General Meeting London, 30 June. At the Annual General Meeting to be held later today, theChairman, Ian Kirkpatrick, will make the following comments: "The Group recorded an excellent result for the year to 31 January 2005 withpre-tax profit up over 220% at £3.6 million on turnover up 25% at £163.4million. We were particularly pleased with the performance of our USoperations, where we opened an office in New Jersey and acquired a business inChicago. The Group now has over 430 full-time staff and in excess of 2000 consultants,located in 30 offices across the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, the UnitedStates and Asia. In April, we announced a three-year strategic plan which included an investmentprogramme of £1 million in the current year to enhance the Group's future growthprospects. Since our announcement, we have been encouraged by the better thanexpected increase in the Group's revenues as a direct result of this outlay. We are particularly encouraged by the performance to date in the United States,where we focussed half of our investment programme. Although profitability inthe first quarter was, as expected, impacted directly by the investment,revenues were up 15% in the period. In the UK, despite seeing lower levels of business confidence toward the end of2004 and into 2005, the Group's broad portfolio of services has enabled our UKbusinesses to report an overall improvement over the same period last year. We are continuing to see a robust performance across our operations inContinental Europe with strong growth recorded in the first quarter of thisyear. Revenues were up 50% on the same period last year, reflecting both thestrength of our operations in Europe and the early returns on our investment.This performance has continued into the second quarter. With the ongoing strong performance in Europe, further progress in the UK and ananticipated improvement in US profitability in the second half, at this earlystage in the year the Board remains confident that the Group is on course todeliver results for the current year in line with the Board's expectations." ENQUIRIES: Harvey Nash Tel: 020 7333 0033Albert Ellis, Chief ExecutiveDavid Higgins, Executive Vice ChairmanCollege Hill Tel: 020 7457 2020Mark GarrawayDick Millard This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange